A Day at the Races

Queen's fifth album followed A Night at the Opera, and it was the first they produced by themselves: Roy Thomas Baker, co-producer of every album since the debut, was no longer involved. It was recorded between July and November 1976 at The Manor, Sarm East and Wessex, with Mike Stone as engineer. Like its predecessor it took its title from a Marx Brothers film, and its sleeve repeated the previous design in black, with a newly drawn version of the band's crest. Brian May and Roger Taylor have often said the band saw it as a continuation of the previous album. May wrote the opening "Tie Your Mother Down" in Tenerife in 1968, while working on his astronomy PhD; he meant to change the title and chorus, but Freddie Mercury liked them as they were. Mercury made "You Take My Breath Away" with only his piano and his own voice, and built the gospel-inspired "Somebody to Love" from the stacked voices of Mercury, May and Taylor until they sounded like a choir. May sang "Long Away" and played it on a 12-string electric instead of his Red Special, and "White Man" takes the side of the Native Americans who suffered at the hands of European settlers. John Deacon wrote "You and I", Taylor sang and played rhythm guitar on his own "Drowse", and Mike Stone sings a line in "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy". The closing "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", May's tribute to the band's Japanese fans, has its chorus in Japanese, translated by Chika Kujiraoka, his interpreter on their visits there; Japan alone released it as a single, on 25 March 1977. EMI issued the album in Britain on 10 December 1976 after advance orders had passed half a million, and Music Week reported gold status assured on the day of release. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 5 on the Billboard album chart, and in Japan, where it came out on 9 January 1977, it also went to No. 1. The band promoted it with a specially staged race at Kempton Park, and Groucho Marx sent them a handwritten note of congratulation.