Tie Your Mother Down - Promotional Video

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For Queen's next single, the raucous Tie Your Mother Down, the band once again enlisted the help of Bruce Gowers. At the time of release, the band were in the middle of an American tour, which meant that Gowers had to be flown out to Miami, USA in February 1977, to provide much needed publicity material, particularly for British audiences. 1977 was the year of punk, and seemingly pompous bands like Queen and Genesis were being heavilly criticised in the music press who were championing The Sex Pistols, The Damned and other raw and edgy up and coming acts. It may be that this is one reason why the single failed to sell in large numbers, reaching only number 31 in the UK charts (though its 1998 re-release with No One But You (Only The Good Die Young) took it well into the top twenty).

The video was intended to be purely a live performance, which would showcase Queen's concert prowess whenever it was shown on television. However, this did not eliminate the need for some form of gimmick, and so during one part of the track there is a somewhat innovative use of splitscreen - allowing the audience to see all four members of the band at one time.

Yet it was another gimmick that nearly cost Roger his life. The performance opened with a collosal on-stage explosion, which was rigged up by placing a fairly large explosive charge in a bucket on Roger's riser. The bucket only served to wrongfully restrict the explosion, which resulted in Roger being blown off his drum stool and off the stage!

Credits

Version Name Artist Recorded Format Length Director Filming Location
Standard Version Tie Your Mother Down Queen 19th February 1977 Video 3.46 Bruce Gowers Miami, USA

Availability

The Video

Tie Your Mother Down