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The Fraternal Twin of “A Night at the Opera”? Just because it might once again take its title from a Marx Brothers' opera? Yes and no. It is indeed the fraternal twin, the one that turned out a bit less attractive, a bit shorter but still deriving from the same mother/source: the underlying idea of the previous album. However, the outcomes will be different.
“A Day at the Races” (1976), a black cover this time to testify to the day/night and black/white dichotomy that so characterized Mercury/May in those years, opens in classic style of Her Majesty the Queen still in full grandeur.
1) “Tie Your Mother Down”, after a crash to Taylor's gong, kicks off a rock track deemed too hard for the Queen of the time, in Rolling Stones style. The approach with the audience was so great that it would be reproduced for all concerts to come. “Tie your mother, your father is obtuse, your brother a bother, let's run away together and give me all your love” writes May. Irony, rock, drive = winning formula.
2) “You Take My Breath Away.” A gorgeous all-voice and piano piece by Mercury that at first glance gives the impression of a sad text but is actually a romantic love song. The effect is very strange, the lyrics rather simple and direct but it is one of those “love at first listen” pieces.
3) “Long Away.” Again, a May who tackles, as in every album, the role of singer but perhaps finds his rightful vocal texture in this track where he doesn’t overdo it. The result is more than appreciable. The complexities, the baroque elements, and the mega-chorus that characterized the previous production seem to have ended, but instrumental and thematic simplicity prevails. Reflective and nostalgic.
4) “The Millionaire Waltz.” Here emerges the tradition that seemed put aside until now. Mercury blends waltz with rock with much dandy irony, yes, of a scion enjoying life earning loads and spending equally. You had to be really out of mind to propose a waltz in rock at the time. Mercury was this. No obstacles. This is Queen. Evergreen piece.
5) “You and I.” One of the more limited moments of “A Night at the Races.” Written by Deacon, it offers a fairly engaging rhythm but very lacking in inventiveness, technical, lyrical, and arrangement aspects. Clearly a cute but trivial piece that lowers the quality average of the album.
6) “Somebody to Love.” That Opera from the year before still lingers in the air, so not only the resumption of traditional music genres can be felt, it's breathed. A Freddie Mercury who almost matches, as a composer, the one of a year before with “Bohemian Rhapsody.” A voice without uncertainties, perfect from the lows to the highs to the falsettos. A work also of anthology, highly melodic slow rock built on a parade of choirs crafted with maximum care and imagination, capable of momentarily detaching from the principal melody and taking a solely vocal direction before closing in regal style. The symbolic piece of the album and one of the band’s flagship songs. It’s already History.
7) “White Man”. Anything but white! Brian May appears rather dark both in the strictly musical choices, which are quite anomalous in the melodic profile (considered the album's melodic standard), and lyrically. Indeed, the lyrics talk about the exploitation of Native Americans. Was it one of those moments when you read a book or an article, are impressed, and want to write a piece? It's unknown. Certainly, "White Man" is indefinable, it escapes but surely once again affirms the Queen voice that most reflects social and historical events.
8) “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.” The melodic peak of the disk. A great Freddie Mercury, who, although presenting us a 50s style song far from those theatrical splendors of “A Night at the Opera,” proves to be very catchy, dreamy, and carefree. One of those tracks that puts you in a good mood especially in the sentimental realm. Nice arrangement, text valid for both grown-ups and the young where once again a dandy in Walter Pater or Oscar Wilde style “dines at the Ritz, offers wine, full of gallantry conquers his beloved.” It appears in almost all versions of the Greatest Hits. Bijou.
9) “Drowse.” Queen fans hate it. I was one of them too. Slow, lazy, and sleepy as the title, it puts an incredible lethargy on, but, it must be admitted, it also reflects a social snapshot in which we can identify: “I spent more hours in billiard halls than in school... those were the olden days... now it’s easier to sit in an armchair and dream.” Roger is less lively and artistic compared to Freddie but very nostalgic and metropolitan. It remains a barely sufficient track but certainly not to be trashed. It too is one of the weaker points of the album anyway.
10) “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together).” Ask in Japan about this piece. It is almost as famous as “Imagine.” Dedicated expressly to the oriental people who will go crazy for the English band, it beautifully closes the record. One of those pieces where you embrace and rediscover the sense of group or couple. A typical Queen text, certainly not innovative but dense with emotion. The gem of singing the refrain in Japanese is incredible, not to lose sight of considering Mercury's blatant idiosyncrasy for learning foreign languages. The closing reprises the initial motif of the album, thus cyclical.
“A Day at the Races” is a beautiful album, without a doubt, where the predominant element is the melody, capable of entering the heart of the musical populace with the same euphoria of the baroque elements of “A Night at the Opera.” Less multifaceted, less refined, less innovative than the previous one but surely an album that shines with its own light and not as a reflection of the preceding album, a melodically amber yellow light compared to that rainbow of “A Night at The Opera.”
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Tie Your Mother Down (04:48)
Get your party gown
And get your pigtail down
And get your heart beatin' baby
Got my timin' right
I got my act all tight
It's gotta be tonight
My little school babe
Your Momma says you don't
And your Daddy says you won't
And I'm boilin' up inside
Ain't no way I'm gonna lose out this time
Tie your Mother down
Tie your Mother down
Lock your Daddy out of doors
I don't need him nosin' around
Tie your Mother down
Tie your Mother down
Give me all your love tonight
You're such a dirty louse
Go get outta my house
That's all I ever get from your
Family ties, in fact I don't think I ever heard
A single little civil word from those guys
I don't give a light
I'm gonna make out all right
I've got a sweetheart hand
To put a stop to all that
Snipin' and grousin'
Tie your Mother down
Tie your Mother down
Take your little brother swimmin'
With a brick (that's all right)
Tie your mother down
Tie your mother down
Or you ain't no friend of mine
Your Mommy and your Daddy
Gonna plague me till I die
They can't understand it
I'm just a peace lovin' guy
Tie your Mother down
Tie your Mother down
Get that big big big big big big
Daddy out the door
Tie your Mother down yeah
Tie your Mother down
Give me all your love tonight
All your love tonight
(Give me every inch of your love)
03 Long Away (03:33)
You might believe in heaven
I would not care to say
For every star in heaven
There's a sad soul here today
Wake up in the morning with a good face
Stare at the moon all day
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
Does anyone care anyway
For all the prayers in heaven
So much of life's this way
Did we leave our way behind us
Such a long long way behind us
Who knows when, now who knows where
Where the light of day will find us?
Look for the day
Take heart, my friend, we love you
Though it seems like you're alone
A million lights above you
Smile down upon your home
Hurry put your troubles in a suitcase
Come let the new child play
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
I'm leaving here, I'm long away
For all the stars in heaven
I would not live
I could not live this way
Did we leave our way behind us
Such a long long way behind us
Leave it for some hopeless lane
Such a long long way
Such a long long way
Such a long long way
Such a long long away
I'm looking for
Still looking for that day
08 Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy (02:54)
I can dim the lights
And sing you songs full of sad things
We can do the tango just for two
I can serenade and gently play
On your heart strings
Be your Valentino just for you
Ooh love, Ooh loverboy
What ya doin' tonight, hey boy?
Set my alarm, turn on my charm
That's because I'm a good old fashioned loverboy
Ooh let me feel your heartbeat
(Grow faster faster)
Ooh can you feel my love heat
Come on and sit on my hot seat of love
And tell me how do you feel right after all
I'd like for you and I to go romancing
Say the word your wish is my command
Ooh love, Ooh loverboy
What ya doin' tonight, hey boy?
Write my letter
Feel much better
And use my fancy patter on the telephone
When I'm not with you
I think of you always
I miss you -
(I miss those long hot summer nights)
When I'm not with you
Think of me always,
I love you, love you
Hey boy, where did you get it from?
Hey boy, where did you go?
I learned my passion
In the good old fashioned school of loverboys
Dining at the Ritz we'll meet at nine precisely
(One two three four five six seven eight nine o'clock)
I will pay the bill, you taste the wine
Driving back in style in my saloon will do quite nicely
Just take me back to yours that will be fine
(Come on and get it)
Ooh love
(There he goes again)
Ooh lover boy
(Goes my good old-fashioned lover boy)
What you did tonight, hey boy?
Ev'rything's all right, just hold on tight
That's because I'm a good old fashioned (fashioned) loverboy
09 Drowse (03:45)
It's the sad-eyed, goodbye yesterday moments I remember
It's the bleak street, weak-kneed partings I recall
It's the mistier mist
The hazier days
The brighter sun
And the easier lays
And there's all the more reason for laughing and crying
When you're younger and life isn't too hard at all
It's the fantastic drowse of the afternoon Sundays
That bored you to rages of tears
It's the unending pleadings to waste all your good times
In thoughts of your middle-aged years
It's a vertical hold, all the things that you're told
For the everyday hero it all turns to zero
And there's all the more reason for living or dying
When you're young and your troubles are all very small
Out here on the street
We'd gather and meet
And scuff up the sidewalk with endlessly restless feet
And half of the time
We'd broaden our minds
More in the poolhall than we did in the schoolhall
With the downtown chewing gum bums
Watching the night life, the lights and the fun
Never wanted to be the boy next door
Always thought I'd be something more
But it ain't easy for a small town boy
It ain't easy at all
Thinking it right, doing it wrong
It's easier from an armchair
Waves of alternatives wash at my sleepiness
Have my eggs poached for breakfast, I guess
(I think I'll be Clint Eastwood)
(Jimi Hendrix, he was good)
(Let's try William the Conqueror)
(Now, who else do I like?)
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Other reviews
By poeta73
The music it contains is unassailable in terms of quality.
'Somebody to Love' needs no introduction...just one adjective: brilliant.
By dany87
The first track, Tie Your Mother Down, is the best hard rock track ever made by Queen.
Somebody to Love is Freddie’s latest vision, setting everything up as a game between his melodic line and the complex choral score.
By Silvaplana
"Without Queen, rock would not have known the best of itself."
"'Somebody To Love' represents a uniqueness never repeated in the world of rock and perhaps in the entire light music as well."
