Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)

Infobox Single
Name = Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)


Artist = Queen
from Album = A Day At The Races
Released = March 25, 1977 (Japan only)
Format = 7"
Recorded = July to November 1976
Genre = Rock
Length = 5:57 (album), 4:55 (single edit)
Label = Elektra (Japan)
Writer = Brian May
Producer = Queen
Last single = "Tie Your Mother Down"
(1977)
This single = "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)"
(1977)
Next single = "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" ("Queen's First EP")
(1977)

nihongo|Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)|手をとりあって|Te o Toriatte is a song from the 1976 Queen album "A Day at the Races" and is written by guitarist Brian May. It is the tenth and final track on the album.

The song is notable for having two verses sung in Japanese; it is one of four Queen songs in which an entire verse is sung in a language other than English. The song features a piano, a plastic piano, and a harmonium, all of which are played by Brian May. It is the only point in the album in which Freddie Mercury does not play piano.

The album's closing guitar melody is also its opening melody; the sequence was attached to the beginning of "Tie Your Mother Down", the first track on the album. May described it as "a never-ending staircase", otherwise commonly known, musically, as a Shepard tone.

The song was released as a single exclusively in Japan, and only as a 7” single; [ [http://www.queenpicturehall.com/singles/qnon77tt.shtml Queen Picture Hall, Singles information] ] it reached #49 on the Japanese charts. [ [http://www.ultimatequeen.co.uk/Songs/adayat.htm A Day at the Races album info] ] The B-side was the song "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy". The closing Shepard tone was edited off the song.

References to the song

*Yasumi Matsuno is a fan of Queen, and named as a tribute to this songFact|date=February 2007.
*"Teo Torriatte" was later referenced by Queen in a line ("we'll sing to you in Japanese") from the song "Let Me Entertain You", featured on their 1978 album "Jazz".

Romanization of the title

The song's title in English uses an outdated form of romanization by applying the particle 'o' to the word before it. When romanized correctly, "手をとりあって" reads "Te (w)o Toriatte."

Also note the romanisation of the hiragana has only one "r", reading the title in kanji and hiragana, "te (w)o to ri a っ te", the character "っ" doubles the "t" in "te".

Live recordings

*"Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl" (1982)
*"Super Live in Japan" (2005)

Chorus Translation

The chorus is sung in Japanese, and it goes as follows:

"Teo toriatte konomama iko
Aisuruhito yo
Shizuka nayo ini
Hikario tomoshi
Itoshiki oshieo idaki" [http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858525304]

Roughly translated, it would go something like this:

"Let Us Cling Together As The Years Go By, Oh My Love, My Love, In The Quiet Of The Night, Let Our Candles Always Burn, Let Us Never Lose The Lessons We Have Learned." [http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858525304]

Notes