• AllMyVinyl #58
• Band: Queen
• Album Title: A Day at the Races
• Release Date: 10 Dec 1976
• Date purchased: Unknown
• Location purchased: Unknown
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This is one of those albums I have from the old days which I have to throw out a confession for.   I bought this solely for two songs.  Tie Your Mother Down & Somebody to Love.  Back in the early/mid 80’s, I’d do that.  Not like now where people would buy individual tracks on iTunes – you had to buy the entire album if you wanted one or two songs.  This was definitely one of those.  So much so that as I sat down to listen to this today, the vast bulk of the songs are ones I had no idea about from the titles.  Then when I listened..  “nope, don’t remember that”.  So while not a blank slate for me, it’s mostly stuff that I needed to re-learn or re-discover, or whatever word you wanted to use there.

As another survivor of my mom’s basement (there were around 100 down there, it’ll come up a lot), it’s in better shape.  As it’s an all black sleeve on the outside, it can show the outline of the vinyl disc more than other colors.  I can see that here too, but it’s not in bad shape at all.  There’s a few minor pops as I play, but overall plays fine.

Tie Your Mother Down – Great in your face fast rocker song. My favorite kind of track. It’s quintessential Queen, IMO. Great guitar work by Brian where he seems to play his own rhythm too (to my ears). I do have to confess the song title itself gave me a bit of “Mr. Spock eyebrow”. I mean I always thought it was a weird song title. :)

You Take My Breath Away – This starts off with the traditional Queen harmonizing with no other instruments. Freddie’s voice is almost its own instrument here. After a little while, a piano is brought in. This one is mostly a showcase for Freddie’s vocals which we all know are considerable (to put it mildly). It remains just vocals and piano through the rest of the song – nearly. There’s some guitar that comes in towards the end, but the bulk of it is just piano.

Long Away – A slower song with a different sound from Brian’s guitar than usual. His traditional “May guitar sound” is here, but for a lot of it, there’s a different sound which I quite liked.

The Millionaire Waltz – The song is named well. When it started I could visualize people waltzing. Bopped my head back and forth with the music, so I was instantly into this one. One of the tracks I don’t remember at all. That might have something to do with my memory about treating this as a “for two songs” album. About halfway through the song it changes gears and goes into full on hard rock (like Stone Cold Crazy), and merges back into the waltz sound, but this time with Brian’s guitar being the main driver here. Really loved re-discovering this song. This is one of those songs that if you mentally tune out at the start, you’ll miss all the fun later on.

You and I – I got so into Millionaire, I didn’t notice the song changed into something different. So to that regard it sounded like an extension of Millionaire. Liked this one too.

Somebody to Love – Well, this is it. The most well known track off this album. If you know Queen at all, I’ll lay money that you know this track, and it’s a great one too. The big single from the album, was a major hit on radio, and continues to be beloved to this day. It’s also got that Queen magic sauce that makes you feel like you could sing along with them and match their vocal harmonies even though most of us would fail completely and utterly if we tried to sing with actual Queen directly. I know I’ve had these visions, I’m sure you’ve had it too. :)

White Man – I love the driving beat here. It’s a very guitar driven song. I’d love to hear Brian do a full on metal album as such. This is a good example of what he could do if they ever went down that path. In reading about this song, I read where this is Brian trying to express sympathy and solidarity for the genocide of Native people led by European colonists. I never picked up on that, but then I’m not always the best at deciphering lyrical meanings sometimes.

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy – Another one that’s got a large piano sound that runs through it. Love that sound, and I also love what Freddie does with his vocal choices in delivering that part of the song. Not sure how to describe it beyond that. Good track love the upbeat sound.

Drowse – This is a Roger Taylor beast. He sings the lead vocals as well as his usual drums *AND* rhythm guitar. It’s for this reason that it has a totally different vibe to the rest of the album (hello “I’m in love with my car”). Wikipedia claims the song has never been played live. I’m not enough of a Queen aficionado to verify that, but if true, that’s a surprise. As many decades as Queen has been playing live, you’d think they’d hit everything by now.

Teo Torriatte – If the last one was a different vibe, then this one stomps all over that. Two verses are sung in Japanese. It has a piano, a plastic piano, and a harmonium – all of which are played by Brian May.  Definitely a different vibe for sure.

Queen is a band I never saw when Freddie was alive.  Only saw them once – with Adam Lambert in 2019.  I regret that, but Queen stopped playing live shows in the US (in 1982) right around the time I was going to concerts, so I didn’t get the chance, sadly.

I was quite glad to listen to this today, as there were several tracks that logic dictates I heard in the past, but for now they sounded all new to me as I’d 100% forgotten them.  Perhaps not my favorite Queen album overall, but plenty of great stuff on this album.  #RIPFreddie