History
May started writing the song in Tenerife, while he was working for his Ph.D. as an astronomer. He composed the riff on a Spanish guitar, and woke up early one morning and played it while singing "tie your mother down," a line he considered a joke. Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury encouraged him to keep the line, similar to what happened between John Lennon and Paul McCartney with the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder" from The Beatles' song "Hey Jude". "Tie Your Mother Down" opens with an ultra-heavy, stripped down Brian May guitar riff.
A promotional film was made for the song, directed by Bruce Gowers, based on a performance clip shot at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York in February, 1977 during the band's US arena headlining tour.
Though it was a long-time live favorite and a US FM rock radio favorite, the song had limited chart success, making #31 in the UK and #49 in the US. Therefore it was included on the band's first Greatest Hits compilation in certain markets only; however, the song is featured on the Queen Rocks compilation album, together with some of the band's heaviest songs.
In a BBC Radio 4 tribute program to Rory Gallagher, May stated that a key inspiration for the riff of this song came from Taste's 'Morning Sun' from their On The Boards (1970) album. The riff is also quite close in sound to the verse riff from T.Rex's song "Funky London Childhood", from their January 1976 album, Futuristic Dragon.
In a 1976 interview on Capital Radio, Freddie Mercury was asked why "tie your mother down"? He replied: "Well this one in fact is a track written by Brian (May) actually, I don't know 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."
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