
A Day at the Races was Released on 10th December 1976
A Day at the Races – Track Listing
1. “Tie Your Mother Down”
2. “You Take My Breath Away”
3. “Long Away”
4 “The Millionaire Waltz”
5. “You and I” J
6. “Somebody to Love”
7. “White Man”
8. “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”
9. “Drowse”
10. “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”
A Day At The Races
Queen Album
A Day at the Races, Produced by Queen, Engineered by Mike Stone, Cover Concept by Freddie Mercury.
Freddie Mercury : Vocal, Piano, Choir Master, Tantrums
Brian May : Guitars, Vocal, Leader of the Orchestra, Harmonium Piano, Plastic Piano
Roger Taylor : Drums, Vocal, Percussion,Pandemonium
John Deacon : Fender Bass, Acoustic Guitar
No synths!
Recommended Songs : Tie Your Mother Down (May), You Take My Breath Away (Mercury), Somebody To Love (Mercury), Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together) (May)
A Day at the Races – Review
Queen continued the theme of calling the album after a Marx Brothers film. The album itself starts with one of Queens best early rockers, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ penned by Brian May and described by the Times as ‘ … Sheer bloody poetry ‘ . Freddie again demonstrates his expertise on the piano with ‘You Take My Breath Away’, which is a moving piece of music which some documentaries used after Freddie’s death. The remaining songs on Side 1, ‘Long Away’, ‘The Millionaire Waltz’, and ‘You And I’, all well worth a listen.
On Side B, there are two songs which ended up on the Greatest Hits compilation, the Aretha Franklin-influenced ‘Somebody to Love’ and the retro-sounding ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ which Freddie called another of his ‘vaudeville numbers’ ; There’s even a song with a chorus in Japanese – ‘Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)’ penned by Brian was inspired by Queens early tours of Japan.
A Day at the Races, is pretty much a book-end to A Night at the Opera, since much of the material was available at the time of Opera. Many of the songs on the album, to a general listener, are very good but there are some technical items which musicians may appreciate, such as the arrangement in ‘ The Millionaire Waltz’, the neverending staircase at the start and end of the album or the excellent production on the album as a result of Queen now being 100% comfortable in the studio.
I usually listen to ‘Night at the Opera’ and ‘A Day at the Races’ together as I find the style of the albums is so similar. In that light, I feel that if you have either of these albums, then getting a copy of the other album is recommended.
Facts about A Day at the Races
Did you know….
- The lyrics at the end of Drowse are, “I’d like to be Clint Eastwood. Jimmy Hendrix, he was great. I really like William The Conquerer. Now, who else do I like?”. Also, “Tie your Mother Down” was a riff Brian used to play pre-Queen.
- The A Day at the Races album was promoted through a horseracing event on 16 October 1976
- A Day at the Races – Overall Rating 92%