Queen- A Day at the Races @50- Brian May, Roger Taylor

Queen’s A Day at the Races  came barely a year after their crowning achievement fourth album, “…an unapologetic sequel to A Night at the Opera , the 1975 breakthrough which established Queen as rock royalty. The band never attempts to hide that…”, notes Stephen Thomas Erlewine on AllMusic.com. And why would they? Both albums had titles borrowed from classic Marx Brothers comedy films. However, A Day at the Races found the members of Queen bowing to no man, and that included sovereign rule in the studio without star producer Roy Thomas Baker for the first time, resulting in the raging rocker “Tie Your Mother Down” and the timeless singalong “Somebody to Love”. Queen songwriter/singer/world-class guitarist Brian May and drummer/singer/songwriter Roger Taylor tell the story of the first five Queen albums, including A Day at the Races,  in my  classic rock interview tribute to the late great Freddie Mercury.

I just realized that  I have been causing “brown-outs” and frying tweeters from Hartford to Memphis to Dallas/Ft. Worth by playing Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” on the radio from A Day at the Races …and without the foggiest first notion of what the blasted song is about. Crotch rock wasn’t invented by frontman Freddie Mercury, to be sure, but nobody incorporated the best aspects of Glam Rock with Hard Rock better than Queen. –Redbeard