Brian May Explains How Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" Came About

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Guitarist, songwriter and singer Brian May remembered how the now classic of Queen "Tie Your Mother Down" came about, and that Freddie Mercury had riffed to tell him that the song could never work with that lyrics.

The guitarist lived alone in a cabin he had built on the Spanish island of Tenerife, while studying for his doctorate in astrophysics, when he was surprised by the inspiration while he slept.

"I woke up one morning and started playing this riff," May said in remarks to the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show . "It's a kind of inspiration from Rory Gallagher , it's like a kind of snapping between the strings. The riff really attracted me, and in my head I could hear that 'Tie Your Mother Down' quite infantile and that's all I had. But I remember sitting there while the sun went down, playing this riff."

He added that "on returning with the band everything was as clear as water. I said to Freddie: 'Look, I have a really great riff; how about?' 'That's really great.' And I said: 'I do not have the lyrics, the only thing I have is' Tie Your Mother Down', which, obviously, we can not use. And he said: 'Yes, you can!'"

May said he soon realized that his original idea "represents the crying of a teenager who is being inhibited by his parents in conquering his girlfriend." "Everything made a lot of sense," he said. "That's why it came to my head. In the end, 'Tie Your Mother Down' ended by writing alone."

"Tie Your Mother Down" opens the 1976 Queen album "A Day at the Races".