[playing slide] Yeah, a glass one. That was on standard tuning.
[song title] Well this one in fact is a track written by Brian actually, I dunno why. Maybe he was in one of his vicious moods. I think he’s trying to out do me after “Death On Two Legs” actually.
We start off with a track from Brian called `Tie Your Mother Down' which we've recently put in the live act. In fact, we played it at Hyde Park before we recorded it. I was able to come to grips with the song in front of an audience before I had to cut the vocal. Being a very raucous track, it worked well for me.
Well, it wasn't about my mum really. It's really meant to be a story about a young boy's frustration and where it leads him, really. It's a simple as that, it's not as personal about some of the stuff we've done, it's more fun. I'll tell you the truth, I know what happened. Sometimes you get a little riff, and you just put some words with it, and then you don't even think about what they mean. Now I'm remember thinking, now this isn't a good enough title for this song, but everyone said: "Well actually, it sounds okay," and so we kind of lyrically built it around that. That's the truth, folks.
For instance on You Take My Breath Away, that's mostly Freddie, and the beginning and end of that song are real harmony showpieces without any rhythm section at all. But then, say, Tie Your Mother Down or something really hard like Liar or something like that - we're using very hard, blasting harmonies, really, in sort-of old English rock n' roll sense, with a rhythm section.
I think, strangely enough, [the most difficult A Day at the Races track to record was] Tie Your Mother Down, it's like a straight boogie track, bang your head against the wall type track, and for some reason we did find a little bit of difficulty in recording it.
We played it at Hyde Park [sic] before we recorded it. I was able to come to grips with the song in front of an audience before I had to cut the vocal. Being a very raucous track, it worked well for me.
I was on top of a mountain in Tenerife, playing some riffs while the sun came up, when the words to that song came into my head. I thought it was a crap title, but Freddie said it meant something to him, so he knows the answer, and who am I to argue?
Tie Your Mother Down was built around a riff, which I'd had kicking around for a long time, and I know pretty much where I first played it: it was on top of that volcanic ridge in Tenerife, where I was doing my PhD studies. I had a little acoustic guitar which I'd bought down in Santa Cruz in Tenerife, where we'd lived, and I remember beating out that riff and enjoying it, enjoying the feeling of bending the string as part of the riff. And I sat there watching the sun go down and kind of singing along with it, but I didn't really have a song at that point.
Twixt Science and Art! Here I am at the fledgling Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife on an observing trip for my PhD - but in leisure time strumming as the Sun sets in a sea of clouds. This was the birth of the Tie Your Mother Down riff.