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A Day at the Races is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 10 December 1976. It was the band's first completely self-produced album, and the first not to feature producer Roy Thomas Baker. Recorded at Sarm East, The Manor and Wessex Studios in England, A Day at the Races was engineered by Mike Stone. The title of the album followed suit with its predecessor A Night at the Opera, taking its name from the subsequent film by the Marx Brothers.

The album peaked at #1 in the UK, Japan and the Netherlands. It reached #5 on the US Billboard 200 and was Queen's fifth album to ship gold in the US, and subsequently reached platinum status in the same country.

A Day at the Races was voted the 67th greatest album of all time in a national 2006 BBC poll.

"Tie Your Mother Down" was written in Tenerife, when May was working on his PhD in Astronomy in early 1968. He wrote it on Spanish guitar and thought he'd change the title and chorus later on, but Mercury liked it and they kept it that way.

The song is preceded, first, by a multi-tracked guitar part reminiscent of the song "White Man," then by a one-minute instrumental intro using a Shepard tone harmonium figure, which is actually a reprise of the ending of "Teo Torriatte": this was intended to create a "circle" in the album. The ascending scale was created by recording a descending scale on a harmonium and playing it backwards for the record.

The main bulk of the song can be described as heavy blues rock, featuring aggressive vocals by lead singer Mercury as well as a slide guitar solo by May, who also provided most of the backing vocals.

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