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A Day at the Races (Music)

 A Day at the Races (Music)
type
TVTItem
 A Day at the Races (Music)
label
A Day at the Races (Music)
 A Day at the Races (Music)
page
ADayAtTheRaces
 A Day at the Races (Music)
comment
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })A Day at the Races is the fifth studio album by British Glam Rock band Queen, released in 1976. It is the direct follow up to their hit album A Night at the Opera. Much like its predecessor, it's named after a Marx Brothers film (in this case, A Day at the Races). Riding off of the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody", the Freddie Mercury penned "Somebody To Love" (Not to be confused with the Jefferson Airplane song of the same name) is the album's most famous song (with "Tie Your Mother Down" at a close second, and "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is also a hit).
 A Day at the Races (Music)
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2023-02-06T17:43:48Z
 A Day at the Races (Music)
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2023-02-06T17:43:48Z
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Dropped link to BrianMay: Not a Feature - ITEM
 A Day at the Races (Music)
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Dropped link to FreddieMercury: Not a Feature - ITEM
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Dropped link to GrandFinale: Not a Feature - ITEM
 A Day at the Races (Music)
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DBTropes
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_2bf54826
type
Longest Song Goes Last
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_2bf54826
comment
Longest Song Goes Last: The album closes with "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", which at 5:50 is the one song on the album that gets closest to Epic Rocking status.
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_2bf54826
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_4af55b78
type
Credits Gag
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_4af55b78
comment
Credits Gag: The liner notes respectively credit Roger Taylor and Freddie Mercury with providing "pandemonium" and "tantrums."
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_4af55b78
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_51f90774
type
Step Up to the Microphone
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_51f90774
comment
Step Up to the Microphone: Brian May sings lead vocals on "Long Away". Engineer Mike Stone sings the lines "Hey boy, where do you get it from? Hey boy, where did you go?" in the bridge of "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy". During live performances, Roger Taylor would take over for this part. Roger Taylor sings lead vocals on "Drowse".
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_53224e46
type
Bookends
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_53224e46
comment
Bookends: The opening track, "Tie Your Mother Down", features a Shepard tone made of multiple harmonized guitars looped backwards at the end of the intro. The closing track, "Teo Torriatte", ends with the same Shepard tone.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_5558641
type
Gratuitous Japanese
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_5558641
comment
Gratuitous Japanese: "Teo Torriatte" has a Japanese title and a bilingual chorus with both the English and the Japanese lyrics having essentially the same meaning, although it uses a slightly archaic romanisation (and additionally, "Toriatte" is misspelled on the cover of A Day at the Races, although it was spelled correctly for the single the band released in Japan); "手をとりあって" would be more commonly romanised as "Te o Toriatte" these days.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6053dc28
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Record Producer
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6053dc28
comment
Record Producer: After four albums co-produced by Roy Thomas Baker (and various other folks), this album marked a shift to the band producing their own material by themselves. They would do it again for News of the World and Made in Heaven (though Mike Stone and David Richards, respectively, were de-facto co-producers).
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6112fb53
type
Obsession Song
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6112fb53
comment
Obsession Song: "Somebody to Love", where the protagonist absolutely wants "somebody to love", almost to the point of despair.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_67784113
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Non-Appearing Title
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_67784113
comment
Non-Appearing Title: "The Millionaire Waltz" comes a bit close to averting this with millionaire appearing a few times in the lyrics, but unfortunately that doesn't exactly count.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6a696742
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The Power of Love
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_6a696742
comment
The Power of Love: "You Take My Breath Away" and "Somebody to Love" are both songs lamenting how wonderful a certain partner is.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_74149c93
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Epic Rocking
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_74149c93
comment
Epic Rocking: "Teo Torriatte" falls just ten seconds short of the six-minute mark.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_74149c93
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_74149c93
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_75750b9a
type
The Savage Indian
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_75750b9a
comment
The Savage Indian: "White Man" comments on the stereotype. The narrator, a Native American, notes how "the red man knows war with his hands and his knives," but contrasts this with the European colonists who waged genocide against his people, describing this as true savagery.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_75f626a5
type
Nostalgia Filter
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_75f626a5
comment
Nostalgia Filter: "Drowse" is a subtle attack at older folks who spend the back half of their lives complaining about children nowadays and how they were so much cooler when they were younger. It works to a surprisingly great effect.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_898ff050
type
Villain Protagonist
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_898ff050
comment
Villain Protagonist: "Tie Your Mother Down" seems harmless enough — locking the girl's father out of the house and tying down her mother is one thing — but the line "Take your little brother swimmin' with a brick" pushes it over the line into this.
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_898ff050
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_954ad71c
type
Evil Colonialist
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_954ad71c
comment
Evil Colonialist: "White Man" is narrated by a Native American witnessing the colonization of the Americas, openly viewing the European settlers as harbingers of a hell on Earth. Among other things, the song describes how the colonists destroyed the natural landscape, massacred the indigenous population, and left the survivors in eternal shame and disgrace, all while using the Bible as a flimsy justification for their actions.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_985f0a0f
type
Production Throwback
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_985f0a0f
comment
Production Throwback: The album cover is a redrawn version of that for A Night at the Opera the previous year. Among other things, the white background is changed to black and the figures are in different poses (some more noticeable than others).
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9b6acdb3
type
Lyrical Cold Open
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9b6acdb3
comment
Lyrical Cold Open: "Somebody to Love" has a hugely iconic one — "Caaaaaannn...?"
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9b6acdb3
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9b6acdb3
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9d12bbc1
type
Foreshadowing
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9d12bbc1
comment
Foreshadowing: "Tie Your Mother Down" begins with an instrumental rendition of "White Man" before the main song kicks into gear.
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9d12bbc1
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9e9c53ee
type
One-Man Song
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9e9c53ee
comment
One-Man Song: "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy", which is unusually narrated by the man in question.
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_9e9c53ee
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_a7b3134
type
I Just Want to Be Loved
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_a7b3134
comment
I Just Want to Be Loved: "Somebody To Love," naturally. The narrator is implicitly having a crisis of faith because of how empty their life feels without companionship.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_c75df49a
type
Shout-Out
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_c75df49a
comment
Shout-Out: Like the album before it, it's named after a Marx Brothers film. In the outro to "Drowse", Roger Taylor namedrops Clint Eastwood, Jimi Hendrix, and William the Conqueror.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_c75df49a
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d0f0a80d
type
One-Word Title
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d0f0a80d
comment
One-Word Title: "Drowse".
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d0f0a80d
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d0f0a80d
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d9761a10
type
Performance Video
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d9761a10
comment
Performance Video: The music video for "Somebody to Love" alternates between footage of Queen performing the song in the studio and concert footage of the band.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d9761a10
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_d9761a10
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfd6b8
type
Lyrical Dissonance
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfd6b8
comment
Lyrical Dissonance: "Tie Your Mother Down": Frustrated lyrics advocating extreme measures to avoid family interference with a date, sung in big massed choruses to an incredibly upbeat guitar riff. "Somebody To Love" is a chorus/gospel song with epic harmonies, about how the narrator is painfully depressed and begging God or ANYONE to help get rid of their loneliness.
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfe8427
type
Intercourse with You
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfe8427
comment
Intercourse with You: The singer of "Tie Your Mother Down" sure would do just about anything to get into his girlfriend's pants. This includes drowning her kid brother.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfe8427
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_dbfe8427
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e6dea5bf
type
Self-Backing Vocalist
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e6dea5bf
comment
Self-Backing Vocalist: As confirmed by Freddie himself, all of the backing vocals in "You Take My Breath Away" are just him ...damn. Roger did his own backing vocals on "Drowse". Otherwise the album largely averts this trope. While Freddie dominates the lead vocals (80% of the tracks are sung by him), it's a fairly balanced three-way-split when it comes to harmonies, besides the aforementioned exceptions.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e6dea5bf
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A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e6dea5bf
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e91cc721
type
In the Style of
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e91cc721
comment
In the Style of: "Somebody to Love" is in the style of Aretha Franklin, of whom Freddie Mercury was a fan.
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_e91cc721
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 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_f511ea9b
type
Product Placement
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_f511ea9b
comment
Product Placement: Brian May wears a jacket prominently bearing the logo for the band's US label, Elektra Records, in the music video for "Somebody to Love".
 A Day at the Races (Music) / int_f511ea9b
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A Day at the Races (Music)

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