Mama Can't Buy You Love: The Official ILM Track-By-Track ELTON JOHN 1978-1988 Listening Thread

Let's do this!

http://www.biography.com/imported/images/Biography/Images/Galleries/Studio%2054/studio54-27-sized.jpg

"Ego"

http://youtu.be/qt7xtcD40Dg

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton+John+-+Ego+-+7%22+RECORD-83494.jpg

Sounds like a coked-up Captain Fantastic outtake in that it's woe-is-me-I'm-a-star special pleading. The hook isn't great. The stop-start dynamics are well done. Dunno about the train whistles though.

So, stage setting, from what I vaguely recall, By 1978, Elton has a) come out as a bisexual to Rolling Stone apparently costing him some (rather clueless) fans, b) split with Bernie Taupin and c) declared he's done playing live. Thus begins "The Not-So-Great Years"

From Elizabeth Rosenthal's bio: "Elton viewed 'Ego' (a leftover Taupin collaboration) as a commentary on bloated show-business vanity of the type embodied, he said, in the careers of David Bowie (!) and Neil Diamond."

"Little Jeannie" the big hit between 1978 and 1983; I can't wait to loathe it.

Taupin (temporarily) going out in real style: that run of "Before schoolish, immaturish, lose-your-coolish" is some of the most brutal rhyming in the English language.

I recall liking "Ego" when I first heard it ca. 2000---was touted then as the "great lost Elton single" as it had flopped hard and wasn't included on any compilations. It's still fun & weird: very Sparks/Deaf School, musically. Why EJ thought this piece of cranky rock-star theatrics would be a hit is another thing.

yeah I don't think this is bad at all but am unsurprised it flopped.

Listening. I don't think I've heard this before. What's the year?

early 1978

Hey wait get back to your book or something oh hi there col. (Actually how long HAVE you been here?)

just on the Eagles thing. I will devote about 5 minutes per day to this project, so no worries Ned

Stoked for the madness.

shh!

I quite like this! I get why it wasn't a hit though, it's not really hooky enough to want to listen to a lot. But it's cool.

and he looks so young in that vidoe

his eyebrows are ridic

I don't mind Taupin's lyrics. The sillier he is the better off we all are.

agreed

I'm so damn curious about A Single Man. By his own standards a flop but more than respectable sales at the height of disco. And I love britishes to discuss "Song For Guy," a massive hit that made no impact in Amerikay.

yeah, "Song for Guy" is a mystery for me, too. first we get a really weird B-side though, if we're going to do strict chronology here

I don't know shit about Elton beyond the hits. But "Ego" has me intrigued. Nice and sprightly; I could almost (barely, but almost) imagine EC & the Attractions doing this.

Finally, some love (or faint praise anyway) for "Ego" on ILM - this was sadly absent from the recent artist poll we did.

(My turn to eat my words by the time we get to 1985, I suspect)

sooner!

1978-1988 is the period where Elton looked the most stylish, I think this is where he peaked in terms of appearance.

the coke diet iirc

the late '70s, thin, sorta-Mod Elton reminds me of someone else, but can't place it.

I could almost (barely, but almost) imagine EC & the Attractions doing this

I used to get Elton and Elvis Costello mixed up when I was a kid- they both wore glasses, frequently wore hats, had names beginning with E, had songs with pianos in them etc.

Some of the facial expressions and mannerism in the video look sort of Bowie-esque, I don't know if that's intentional (c.f. the quote above about Bowie being one of the inspirations for the figure in the song)

I had forgotten this song existed, can't remember what I thought of it at the time; evidently not much. Crazy tempo changes, very rock-theatre. The Sparks/Deaf School comparison is apt.

I admire you guys, but I have no intention of subjecting myself to this if only because I never want to encounter any reason to have to hear "Wrap Her Up" again.

Three months away. Be a man. Bite your lip (get up and dance)!

Over time I think it's important that we wear a succession of slightly worse wigs and technicolor fun shirts

I used to get Elton and Elvis Costello mixed up when I was a kid- they both wore glasses, frequently wore hats, had names beginning with E, had songs with pianos in them etc.

― going out dancing with the girls, her cat. (soref), Wednesday, December 11, 2013 3:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can almost hear an Elton "Alison" in my head--however it ends up being a Bernie opera riffing on the notion of "you that little friend of mine take off your party dress".

I guess I'll go in for this, as I recently picked up some classic era Elton on disc cheap during an Amazon blitz (I even got the expanded Here and There!).

"Ego": I heard this before on a friend's public radio show some years back. He mentioned afterwards that the song was his intro to EJ via the radio, and it was one of the first new music singles he got on 45 (he'd be 8 y.o. at the time). It does have a slightly infectious Sparks feel, not to mention coming off like sped-up Meatloaf/Steinman.

I've never heard this one before. There's some seriously funky chord changes goin' on. Not bad.

But what would Don 'n' Glenn say?

well, yeah

DON: We knew Elton. He and Bernie were songwriters who sold millions of albums. Glenn and I wondered how they did it. We met him a few times at the Chateau Marmont. He was kind enough to buy us a few bottles of champagne, which we were most appreciative of when we were up and coming.

GLENN: Remember that party in '74? Pretty sure he was watching us up and coming.

DON: Well, yeah.

"Chloe" from 1981 is a pretty good minor Top 40 ballad.

I got The Fox as a joke gift last xmas. I'll be happy to oblige in a couple months.

the one I'm bracing for is (my God I hope not Don 'n' Glenn-influenced) Victim of Love

let's have our fingers crossed for Don Felder on guitar though
RIGHT? :D

"Part Time Love", the lead single from A Single Man, would have made a good 3rd or 4th single. But it was the lead single. Always thought it was catchy, but can see why it never went Top 20.

can't wait to discuss it

I got The Fox as a joke gift last xmas.

A lump of coal in the stocking if there ever was one.

Don and Glenn will be making a backing vox appearance in a couple albums.

I think Elton hates The Fox as much as everybody else. Both Top 40 singles, "Chloe" and "Nobody Wins" haven't shown up on any U.S. singles compilation that I can think of.

he looked battered on a repeat of Top Of The Pops last week doing Song For Guy, always liked that one though. the best quote i ever read about his lost years was from EJ himself who said in UNCUT magazine of the coke years "it sounds like a dead person in there".

The only Fox-y tune I remember is the gay thing cowritten with Tom Robinson.

should I do today's, Alfred? I'm awake and have had a cup. I've got all the links, i think

I've got a toot waiting, so go for it.

"Shine On Through"

http://youtu.be/pmeec8smGQ8

http://static.musictoday.com/store/bands/93/product_large/MUDD183.JPG

Backstory in a sentence: Elton wanted to do his own Philly Soul album, so he hires Thom Bell in 1977 to produce one for him. They clash a bit record a bunch of songs, including the first version of "Shine on Through," which has a big gospel outro:

http://youtu.be/MNpkFbO7_ck

but Elton thinks the tracks are "too saccharine" and scraps most of the songs. Then he remakes "Shine on Through" for A Single Man.

I hear hints of "The One" and The Lion King in the melody: big featureless balladry.

these lyrics, ugh. please come back bernie. all is forgiven. noel gallagher might be able to turn a phrase as banal as "shine on through" into a catchy hook. elton, here, seems to be saying why even bother?

he thought the Thom Bell sessions were too saccharine?

speaking off discarded partners named bernie, comparisons between taupin and leadon should be encouraged wherever possible herein.

which Reagan daughter did Taupin date

You get the sense all of these guys spent the '70s trying to make their own "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and never quite getting there ("shine on through" maybe from P. Simon's own blechhy "shine on, silver girl"). This one's dull and ponderous, straight from the opening chords. This was the lead-off track?

& yeah, scrapping the Bell version seems an odd decision. "No, I'm going to do my own version, thank you: with more modest shlock accompaniment." why not go whole hog, Elton?

On this cd reissue of Electric Warrior, there's a bonus radio interview where Bolan says he and Taupin are writing a sci-fi book together.... The mind boggles

I really like this version from the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special:

http://youtu.be/g-ql5oM_hLA

I think Alfred's busy listening to Beyonce this morning, so let's see, where are we:

"Return to Paradise"

http://youtu.be/eHu_IAACVQs

http://images.45cat.com/elton-john-return-to-paradise-the-rocket-record-company-2.jpg

Ha – was just about to post.

you get the next few

kind of a cross-Caribbean "paradise" here: "island" marimba, Mexican horns. Surprised Carnival Cruises never used it (or did they?)

Those mariachi horns are sad; it's like he wants to evoke the genre experiments of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

I never understood why he was always lumped in with Billy Joel. Sure, there's obvious parallels (playing melodic pop on the piano), but Elton just seemed so far beyond Joel's abilities in all areas. But here, jeez, it sounds like he's trying to do a Joel impression. "If Billy had a hit with stuff like this, then so can I!"

this is the worst EJ vocal performance i have ever heard. what the hell?

A couple behind

I really like A Single Man, the lyrics whatever but his vocals are really beautiful on that track

this Return to Paradise though. What the effing hell. He sounds AWFUL.

we got a lot of awful coming up

I'm ready

...

i think

"I Don't Care"

http://youtu.be/2P_ZPPuezlk

http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2007/archive/covers/78/1_16_78_205x273.jpg

hey, this is more like it. Lyrically inane (Gary Osborne, the temporary Bernie T. replacement, can't even get his poor man's lament schtick straight: "more heat than I can use?" not really something to complain about?) and it's crying out for a single edit like no one's business, but it's got a good rhythmic interplay with Elton's piano playing, the strings (Paul Buckmaster in the vein of Thom Bell) and the chorus vocals.

from the People cover above: "He's given up touring and those nutty glasses---but not lasses!" Whew! Got scared for a moment. Ironic headline juxtaposition: "Cocaine in Hollywood"

ugh I can't get with this. It's a simulacrum of joy. "I don't care" indeed.

'juxtaposition'
I wonder what the story was with the lumberjack get-up?

one of his lasses suggested it

for the first five or six seconds, this song makes me nostalgic for the days of "elderberry wine," which was five years ago at this point. then he starts singing and i get wistful for "shine on through," which was five minutes ago. at least he still had his voice when this album started. did he record the lead track and then go on a 30-day coke binge before continuing? were the nutty glasses the secret source of his vocal prowess? have the lasses sapped him of his strength?

these last couple of songs coud also lead you to believe bernie taupin was secretly writing the melodies all along.

It does remind me a bit of, well, faster piano rockers of yore.

fuck I already missed yesterday. We'll post two today. The first:

http://youtu.be/7lyI_OUKSzU

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dNPh2-2ZB44/TxJBr8pcF1I/AAAAAAAAcSE/Ib0dHof8JHc/s1600/Elton+John+and+Andy+Warhol+at+the+Xenon+disco+in+New+York+City%252C+1978..jpg

"Big Dipper"

THIS is more like it: genre exercise that could've fit on Side Three of GYBR or the second half of Caribou but still rather hysterically over-arranged.

yeah, this is pretty fun. the music's a clunky pastiche of Little Feat, Leon Redbone and factory-setting "New Orleans jazz," and the lyric is the sort of double entendre that an 11-year-old would write, but at least this kinda swings. Chorus sunk by too many amateur voices colliding (acc. to Elton's biographer, singers include the staff of Rocket Records and members of the Watford Football Club)

It Ain't Gonna Be Easy

http://youtu.be/4f74wD6hltg

http://bernardmitchell.co.uk/images/stories/blog_images/elton_john_ron_rollitt.jpg

Eight minutes! I feared the worst but:

-- The guitar fills sting

-- Paul Buckmaster's strings, while unnecessary, hugs Elton's vocal without smothering it.

This sounds like another Thom Bell session remake, but don't think it was. Agree that the guitar and Buckmaster are the stars here (and their interplay in the coda is great), but Elton's back in fine voice here too. It really builds for once.

so far this is one weird record. Big brooding Philly Soul numbers cheek-by-jowl with garish, charmless novelties

I listened to it again. I'll take a risk and say this is a Good Song and Performance -- the sort of lost gem for which I hoped this and the Eagles thread were created.

genre exercise that could've fit on Side Three of GYBR or the second half of Caribou but still rather hysterically over-arranged

kind of a poor man's caribou though. the whole thing's a bit too on the nose, and it doesn't quite rock in the way that even the ballads and genre exercises on caribou do.

but his singing voice has thankfully returned!

and the voice is still there for "it ain't gonna be easy," which is poor man's madman across the water, sort of.

or rich man's Madman Across the Water.

ha!

time for the album's "hit"

Part-Time Love

http://youtu.be/xbUAglsS_8o

http://www.importsounds.com/images/ELTON-JOHN_PART-TIME-LOVE_061512.JPG

His first lead single to miss the US top twenty in years. Forgotten too. I like the Philly swing of the backing vocals.

I don't recall this (it hit #21 or something) which is odd because, due to personal circumstances in '78-'80 (being shuttled for an hour each day to school by someone who listened to Roanoke's only top 40 station), even the more obscure singles from that era are stuck deep in the memory well.

It's okay, but it sounds kind of sickly, half-cooked pop--you can hear EJ willing the song forward in the latter half of the verses: "I'm Elton John, damn it, I'm going to make this thing work!" Guitar hook sounds like the theme song of an afternoon news show. Some fun over-the-top Buckmaster scoring, esp. in the bridges

This was probably the first Elton John song I knew, because as a young kid I'd frequently hear my older brother sing the chorus hook which he evidently couldn't get out of his head. You! Me! Ev-er-y-body!! He'd sing the "you", tried to get me to sing the "me", and we'd both sing the "everybody" before he finished the rest of the line. This is how we passed the time on long drives in the back of the station wagon. I learned several songs this way, since I didn't have a radio or a record player back then. I didn't learn until decades later what song this was or who sang it.

The original RS review by Stephen Holden.

A Single Man demonstrates just how thin the line really is between disposable radio pop and elevator music, and suggests that for all of Elton John's public whining about not being taken seriously, the only thing that's ever mattered to him is that the hits keep coming. May they not.

"Georgia"

http://youtu.be/yBCPZktTBsU

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XHW-IERrCAE/TxJDT4gOSlI/AAAAAAAAcTk/AMM0trm2Gaw/s1600/Studio+54+Elton+John+at+Studio+54+Rocket+Party%252C+July%252C+1978.jpg

Another not unpleasant retread, this time of his early habit (or Taupin's) of constructing a bauble around a geographic or thematic abstraction ("Slave," "Hercules").

"Good Old Boys" without the irony; "Tumbleweed Connection" without the (Taupin-led) attempts at "naturalism"--like Alfred said, it's a song about a postcard image. Ode to Jimmy Carter? Who knows.

sounds like something a british lyricist would write having heard the word "georgia" but otherwise having no idea.

boz scaggs' "georgia," from a couple years earlier, is a dead ringer for elton and is a much better song.

Good catch!

Silk Degrees is like an Elton John record that John wasn't capable of making anymore

"Shooting Star"

http://youtu.be/ueXBHTSkZY4

oh wait – this is incorrectly named on YouTube! Stand by.

I can't find a standalone clip, so go to 33:11 here: http://youtu.be/VcxJqI7I-xA

Was just wondering if we're going to have trouble finding the more obscuro Elton tracks on YT.

"Shooting Star": this starts out promisingly, w/ the fretless bass and an intriguing verse melody, but mercy, when that garrulous saxophone shows up it's curtains for me. Feels like Elton going for a Hejira sound and missing

yes, i mean no, to that saxophone, which reminds me more of billy joel or gerry rafferty than joni.

but this is the first song on a single man that sounds anything like classic elton to me. it's a gorgeous melody. it's sung well. i love the bit, on the line "you might have seen me at the early show," where the electric piano follows the vocal melody.

"Madness!!!"

http://youtu.be/Zx4HYH9Y35Y?t=1m43s

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Z3ghExwTEq8/hqdefault.jpg

A bit of "Grey Seal" in the intro.

just completely ridiculous, but I kinda love it. The disco strings showing up on the chorus are a fun touch; generic guitar solo not so much.

This isn't bad, no, but he gets hoarse and it goes on a bit.

So far A Single Man plays like run of the mill early seventies Elton except without a fantastic single or two to put it over.

yes, feels like "the formula" is still in place, just minus the hits. Things get weirder on the next one, if I recall (haven't heard Victim of Love in like 20 yrs).

"Reverie"

http://youtu.be/VcxJqI7I-xA?t=41m48s

"Song For Guy"

http://youtu.be/CFSlSCjzV_U

http://thelastsongiheard.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/song-for-guy-single.jpg

Sounds like EJ got "Little Jeannie" out of this one--he's almost singing the "Jeannie" melody at the end

so this is the big cross-Atlantic mystery: huge hit in the UK, utterly nowhere in the States: it's Elton's equivalent of "Mull of Kintyre." Some speculation that the reign of the horrific "Music Box Dancer" in the US in '78 sewed up the market for piano instrumentals

one of Princess Di's favorite songs too

I love it. I was only about 5 when it came out. My Dad claimed it was about a gorilla which had died at London Zoo. Several decades passed before I discovered this was untrue.

I can't hear the charm. The hook is weak and the synth touches are garish.

"Flinstone Boy (b-side of "Ego")

http://youtu.be/ttu9Psimn0E

http://bernardmitchell.co.uk/images/stories/blog_images/elton_john_ron_rollitt.jpg

answer to question: "Why didn't Elton John write his own lyrics?"

"reverie" would make a good film cue for a certain moment in a quirky drama.

"song for guy" sounds like the isolated instrumental track for a meh vocal song.

"flinstone boy" sounds like he was spending more time with heroin than with cocaine.

"madness" restores my faith that it was in fact cocaine not heroin. there were times (both before this and after this) when elton could actually have sung that chorus.

(and, yeah, it's very "grey seal.")

"I Cry at Night" (B-side of "Part Time Love")

http://vimeo.com/14295324

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-4358747-1362755111-1674.jpeg

I don't know what he's attempting. The harmonies and voice affects are like CSN meets Freddie Mercury.

"Lovesick"

http://youtu.be/IRaOZAPD_g0

Note: Bob Dylan did not cover this in 1997.

Melodically it's a cousin to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and its brisk pace and let's-get-down-to-business air work. Maybe the bongos help?

otoh the lyrics are garbage and the singing has no character.

The sort of track that aspires to be aerobics workout music but doesn't quite make the cut. Still, even at his most indifferent, EJ can still toss out a few hooks like pennies into a tip jar.

alfred, we doing the Thom Bell singles from '79 before Victim of Love?

The song to which we owe the thread title?

that's the one!

OK I can't find final ASM b-side "Strangers" anywhere, so let's go straight to:

"Mama Can't Buy You Love

http://youtu.be/fw1ulSbMBiw

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton+John+-+Mama+Can%27t+Buy+You+Love+-+12%22+RECORD%2FMAXI+SINGLE-69416.jpg

such a shame that the re-issued/remixed version of Are You Ready For Love was used as a freakin advert for Sky TV.

"Are You Ready For Love

http://youtu.be/4QSA7pSvh-o

I wish Dionne Warwick had sung this.

catching up:

"Mama Can't Buy You Love": Didn't recall this one for a sec, then the chorus kicked in and bam: suddenly back in '79. Though it's not really "contemporary" sounding: it feels like an '73-'74 oldie that resurfaced at the peak of disco. Makes sense the track was cut a few years earlier, w/ EJ going for an early '70s Philly Soul sound.

"Ready for Love": agree Warwick (or the Three Degrees) could've done wonders with this. Again, bit of a throwback sound.

"Three Way Love Affair" B-side of "Are You Ready for Love"?

http://youtu.be/9K9D8S3LhB0

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c57/djtaddia/45%20Lot%20Vol%20XXX/poasdfghj235.jpg

the sound of Philly Soul in its dotage. Chorus is okay, but repeated 434 times as here it becomes hateful

It's a mystery why EJ flopped with this material. Did he chose terrible songs?

think it was more timing: this stuff seems really old hat in the year of "Good Times" and "Rapper's Delight." If it had come out in 1975, maybe it's a bigger hit

"Johnny B. Goode"

http://youtu.be/0O2S5G0spr0

http://flaxmanrecords.com/wp-content/uploads/elton-john-victim-of-love.jpg

this is just ghastly

holy christ. This is "Victim of Love"-level terrible.

who starts off their disco album with a cover of "johnny b goode" FFS? acc. to wiki there's an 8 minute version on the album, which i blessedly didn't find on youtube

"Warm Love in a Cold World"

http://youtu.be/fXM-42um9No

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fYYp4hJi6dM/TwUb16gHtvI/AAAAAAAAZcE/kFfQ3-VDU18/s640/rock-superstar-sir-elton-john-in-concert-palladium-theatre-greenwich-village-ny-october-1979+%25281%2529.jpg

The slap bass and cowbell and backing vocals suggest energy.

holy christ. This is "Victim of Love"-level terrible.

― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Eagles "Victim of Love," of course

well, "Born Bad" isn't found anywhere. Listened to it on Spotify: it's decent. Generic disco beat, popped bass, a hoarse-sounding Elton singing a vocal he probably cut after a heavy lunch, a "bad to the bone" lyric that its performer can't really sell.

oh, and guitar solo that sounds like it was lifted off an Aldo Nova record

21 at 33, I can see you from the opposite shore.

Nah you gotta week at least til we get there. Don't forget the two France Gall duets.

"Born Bad" is on grooveshark: http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Born+Bad/3Qj5p1?src=5

I'm so behind on these.

aren't you lucky

"Thunder in the Night"

http://youtu.be/C_3gMWOqszI

I'll say this: if Hercules & Love Affair created the first minute in 2008 no one would blink.

http://www.yarden-uriel.com/elton66.jpg

Oh, why did he have to start singing? was pretty great until then. "My woman says she ain't my woman!" The choruses on this record really are subpar: this like the sort of disco you'd hear in a nightclub scene in "Falcon Crest."

Those clavinets work.

i'm way behind on this thread, but checking in to say this starts out sounding exactly how i would expect, and want, disco era elton to sound. but yeah that chorus is completely underwhelming. would it be asking too much to want early-'70s elton to flash forward for a minute and finish late-'70s elton's song?

as it turns out, Elton didn't write (or play) a note on this record. Blame due to the stellar composing team of Pete Bellotte, Stefan Wisnet, Gunther Moll and a few others

described in a bio as "German disco songsmiths." Other details: EJ flew to Munich and cut all his vocals for Victim in a single day, in about eight hours.

"Spotlight"

http://youtu.be/JTfGrExMw94

http://binaryapi.ap.org/7e3897b3eb2742d0a785f6c5415d0328/512x.jpg

Same formula as "thunder in the night": the first minute sounds like something that would get a Best New Music on P'fork, then Elton stumbles in.

cavecairo70
1 year ago

Caribou is a masterpiece compared to this album!!

i'd bet EJ hasn't listened to this record since it was made, if he even listened to it then

didn't he go to Russia around this time? i recall that being a big deal. there was a TV special.

"Street Boogie"

http://youtu.be/xHZdk0jtpd0

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/xHZdk0jtpd0/hqdefault.jpg

"Street boogie got a hold on me" eh

Chicago's "Street Player" is 100x better than this

man, we're dying on the vine here. let's finish off this mess of an album:

"Victim of Love"

http://youtu.be/PkkhoCpvLZU

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton+John+-+Victim+Of+Love+-+7%22+RECORD-171661.jpg

The single!

he sounds like Gary Numan singing over a France Joli track.

What a weird, anonymous way to do a disco cash-in album. You feel that if EJ could've outsourced his vocals to some German soundalike, he would've.

This farrago confirms my theory about "dated" as a pejorative: a track's dated if it uses the most obvious, recognizable patterns and sounds of the day without alteration (Donna Summer hasn't dated one jot).

B-side "Strangers" not available, so here we go into 21 at 33!

Chasing the Crown

http://youtu.be/KdLgZVSq0Fg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Elton_John_in_1980s.jpg

I swear, hearing those power chords was like walking out of a smoky bar into sunlight and air.

yeah, it's nice to hear the "Elderberry Wine"/"Bitch is Back" Elton return after that dismal exile in Munich. Guitar and backing vocals are garish, Taupin's lyric is Bernie trying to do "Sympathy for the Devil" on a budget, but this is the most awake EJ's sounded since the Ford Administration.

Our first big hit!!

"Little Jeannie"

http://youtu.be/Wlz6mTyiMZc

http://cdn.pianosheetmusiconline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Little-Jeannie-Elton-John.jpg

I gotta say: its success mystifies me. The electric piano part, the chorus horns – ick.

I have some fondness for this one solely out of nostalgia: it embodies the kitschy "adult pop" world ca. '79-'81, the Christopher Cross/Player/ "Music Box Dancer"/"Stumblin' In" etc world that I heard on the radio and was my first concept of pop music. agree it's icky but you can't deny the hooks, either.

I also can't ever hear it without recalling how the kids on my school bus renamed it "Little Weenie," a title that made the rest of the song ludicrous ("I want you to be my acrobat!")

Apparently it was a hit the old fashioned way: it got on the radio and people kept requesting it and buying copies (it's certified gold back when gold meant shipping a million).

this, of course, becomes Elton's survival formula for the rest of this survey: however crap the album, crank one hit off it and you're good for another year (exceptions include The Fox, natch)

"Sartorial Eloquence"

http://youtu.be/LB1rim3VXo0

http://www.ioffer.com/img3/item/141/940/781/elton-john-live-in-central-park-+bonus-footage-1980-dvd-46c8.jpg

lyrics by Tom Robinson!

The second single.

A crowded arrangement: high synth, rhythm guitar strums, backing vocals, piano, all on the chorus.

Only clicking on this thread sporadically to see if you've got to Passengers yet. One of the worst singles of the 80s.

and a top five in England. How odd.

When I was 10. It's one of the few songs I distinctly remember hating at that age. Looking at the lyrics now, it seems to be a protest song but about what I'm not exactly clear.

apparently cracked the US top 40 too, but I don't recall hearing it

Figured I'd jump in to remind ya'll this one ("Sartorial Eloquence") features among the many voices on the chorus ilm's favorite douchecanoe harmony duo...

DON: After years of being fans, it was an honor to actually take part in a session with our friend Elton during one of his lowest periods, both personally and creatively. I honestly feel our Eagle harmony magic elevated his song right where it was needed most.

GLENN: Speaking of being elevated, I think between us Don & I lost a whole pack of cough drops in the, er, echo chambers that night.

DON: Well, yeah.

Congrats. You've mastered the Henley sincerity.

"Two Rooms at the End of the World"

http://youtu.be/bzTKdafOnAo

http://www.ioffer.com/img3/item/141/940/781/elton-john-live-in-central-park-+bonus-footage-1980-dvd-46c8.jpg

was this album some kind of make-work program for underemployed session musicians? There's like 50 people on this track, including a prominent cowbeller.

abt 3 minutes in, I realized "2 Rooms" was just going to be the same tune-lite verse-refrain repeated over and over again, and resigned myself to it, and suddenly it became a Chicago record for a bit.

That's the problem with the album (so far): not bad melodies smothered by desperate arrangements.

ode to a muse:

"White Lady White Powder"

studio version not on YT (it's on Grooveshark/Spotify) but here's the live version from Central Park '80:

http://youtu.be/7BbismoORP0

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton%2BJohn%2B-%2BWhite%2BLady%2BWhite%2BPowder%2B-%2B7%2522%2BRECORD-498449.jpg

lol @ white man danger

brace yrself for that one. Political satire by B. Taupin

This is the first okay song we've heard in days. The piano has boogie, the lyrics don't interfere.

this got some radio play when it came out and i remember young me thinking this song was a sign that elton was back. i also remember young me hearing the rest of the album and thinking i had been wrong.

today it sounds like a hybrid of glam-period elton and 21st century nashville (the "and she's a habit i can't handle / for a reason i can't say..." part). i also think it would work pretty well on billy joel's glass houses, which came out a couple months before this. i like it.

"Dear God"

http://youtu.be/V_7e7DDOTCU

http://991.com/NewGallery/Elton-John-Dear-God---Double-58628.jpg

think the Almighty Himself would be nodding off around 2 minutes into this one

you beat me!

I was just navigating around the live clip that automatically came up

when did EJ start owning his baldness (or wearing toupees)? the "strategic hat" photos are getting ridiculous

"Never Gonna Fall in Love Again"

http://youtu.be/j65aY2w85RM

http://www.rockpeaks.com/files/eggs/j/John-Elton/057358-John-Elton-Ego-Central-Park-1980_0.jpg

Another sitcom theme, complete with electric piano. Lyrics by Tom Robinson, but you can't tell.

sort of thing that would crop up in some grim late '70s-early '80s middle-aged sex comedy, like "Blame it On Rio": the Robinson lyric has the singer as being on the prowl ("everywhere there's lot of foxes!") but the track's so limp and schlocky that it feels like embalming fluid's entering yr veins when you listen to it. Chorus is fourth-rate by EJ standards; the sub-"Baker Street" sax break doesn't help matters

Five b-sides approaching. Should we post two of those a day?

yeah, that works. i can't imagine the caliber of B-side we're talking about here

I can't find "Take Me Back" so here's:

"Give Me the Love"

http://youtu.be/

http://www.rockpeaks.com/files/imagecache/body/eggs/j/John-Elton/057358-John-Elton-Ego-Central-Park-1980_0.jpg

Don't forget the two France Gall duets.
― Jeff W, Monday, 30 December 2013

"Conquer the Sun" (UK b-side)

http://youtu.be/Se1w-U-Uq30

How on earth can you conquer the sun with these tempos?

ok, recap:

"Take Me Back": Elton countrypolitan with his Tumbleweed Connection voice cropping up in the bridge like a smoker's cough, complete with that inescapable "Little Jeannie" electric piano and a Hollywood approximation of a fiddle solo.

"Give Me the Love": no, pay for it, you skunk.

Strange record, 21:33. Objectively it's not that much different from, say, Piano Player but the hit single's no "Daniel" (even if you hate "Daniel") and the filler's mainly overcooked goo. I think Single Man holds up a lot better than this.

"Conquer the Sun": big, booming, dull chorus: an organ transplant (that didn't take) to a diseased body.

"conquer the sun" verses remind me, in a totally not bad way, of first-album elton. choruses remind me of what it would be like if oasis were asked to write smarmy ballads for a "lion king" sequel in 2018.

the two B-sides of "Sartorial Eloquence":

"Cartier"

http://youtu.be/xqgOD99xqyQ

"White Man Danger!!!"

http://youtu.be/P3FzM8BENJQ

http://www.eltonjohnitaly.com/sartorial-spagna.jpg

The Clash - "White Man Danger-Cartier Commercial"

Strange record, 21:33. Objectively it's not that much different from, say, Piano Player but the hit single's no "Daniel" (even if you hate "Daniel") and the filler's mainly overcooked goo. I think Single Man holds up a lot better than this.

Yep. A Single Man is a notch worse than peak-period Elton but if "Part-Time Love" hadn't flopped no one would've noticed this fact, while 21 at 33 sounds like aesthetic decline and David Geffen-here-I-come.

alfred, should we do the 3 B-sides of "Dear God" in one go? then on to the lest-we-forget France Gall duets

Go for it!

"Tactics"

http://youtu.be/pkd-Xh8bNxY

man, the success of "Music Box Dancer" really galled EJ, no?

"Steal Away Child"

http://youtu.be/-VvT5_ZYGLw

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/eb951vy0LYA/hqdefault.jpg

My nose hairs fell out the second those synths at the 0:50 mark started.

It's "The Final Countdown" six years early!

"Love So Cold"

http://youtu.be/eV720KrCj4g

oh good, we haven't had a "Caribbean" Elton track in a while

christ, what sounds like the elec. piano from Supertramp's "Logical Song" turns up in that last one

oh cool: the electric piano mimics steel drums

"That's why they call 'em B-sides," my father, 1980, when I complained about Queen's "Don't Try Suicide" on the "Another One Bites the Dust" single

aujourd'hui, M. Elton avec la belle Mlle. Gall:

"Donner Pour Donner"

http://youtu.be/VvDsgrMP5eY

"Les Aveux"

http://youtu.be/_2hydKjtJGo

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4133/4831231479_a4b0168c0b_o.jpg

"Les Aveux" was originally a song called "Reach Out to Me" that Elton abandoned. Not sure if Michel Berger was involved at all in the writing before the lyrics got Frenchified, but it's kinda typical of the dross that he saddled his wife with - and thus killed her appeal for me almost stone dead from '75 onwards. The saxophone on this is credited to Low Price, which sums up the whole song neatly really. Mind you, a low price is also what I paid for the 7" when I found it in a second hand shop in Brussels :)

"Donner pour donner" is better. Taupin gets a co-writing credit on this one, in addition to Berger and Elton.

so now we head into The Fox...

"Breaking Down Barriers"

http://youtu.be/570vPBOQnSs

http://images.npg.org.uk/800_800/0/7/mw77407.jpg

The best or most Elton-like song I've heard to date, pointing the way to the polite rocking that would characterize his better eighties hits. Even the production is uncluttered.

yeah i can definitely hear the roots of better elton to come. solid arrangement, production, etc. songwriting still pro forma, though. ("pro forma" in this case meaning meh for elton but not bad for gary osborne!)

The Fox! Looking forward to this one, as I've heard utterly nothing off it. Agree with the consensus this seems like ground-clearing for the slight upsurge in quality mid-'80s. Pretty duff lyric, but there's been (and will be) worse

"Heart's in the Right Place"

http://youtu.be/t7zH7kfJ-k8

http://po4ep.s3.amazonaws.com/111/l/20930565.jpg

I mentioned a friend bought me this album last Xmas as a quasi-joke. This is one of those tracks I don't know what to do with. The guitar seems to have wondered in from a Pink Floyd session. He's got John Lennon filters on his voice. The drums are well miked though.

like a rewrite of Lennon's "It's So Hard" with a lead guitar that you want to unplug about 1:00 in. It's weird enough to make it more interesting than most of 21 at 33 though.

I think he did a video for every track! wonder if the starved-for-material 1981 MTV played this stuff. This one's a bit nightmarish, eh?(wonder if Elton had the inside scoop on Camilla Parker Bowles, as the actress is a bit of a lookalike)

*wondered = wandered

Produced by Chris Thomas btw, responsible for the clean mix and "modern" post-punk touches.

"Just Like Belgium"

http://youtu.be/TuYoXR3HLzQ

http://www.nicholasjdanton.supanet.com/Freddie%20and%20Elton.jpg

"Elton and Bernie had originally written "Belgium" for Rod Stewart, who turned it down, claiming the melody and lyrics were incompatible" from the Elton bio His Song

was a bit cruel of Taupin to saddle EJ with having to sing the clunky "Just like BELL-gium" over and over again

"But the red lights where the catfights make it just like Belgium"

waht

also, "the Brussels Museum" - can you be a bit more specific plz. Don't remember any steps outside of any of 'em for that matter.

I like the song anyway though.

the same year, Costello put out "Luxembourg." 1981 a big pop moment for the Benelux countries

"Nobody Wins"

http://youtu.be/qq-Wtv174M8

http://www.vinylvendors.com/Pictures/e/l/eltonjohn50861.jpg

Exactly.

The US single! This cover crawled to #21. I have no memory of this song. Anyone who says he heard it should call my lawyer.

"While driving through St. Tropez, Elton heard Janie Prevost's "Je Veux de la Tendresse" on a car radio. He was so overcome that he pulled to the side of the road to listen. He asked Gary Osbourne to write an English verse to Prevost's melody. Osbourne wrote about Elton's unloving relationship with his father."

i've never heard this thing, either. must have been pure payola to get it to #21

Osbourne wrote about Elton's unloving relationship with his father
Obviously wasn't much to say about that, given only about 2mins in to the song EJ is left singing "La la la la, la la la la"

Despite that, this is my favourite Elton track of the 80s. So there.

MR. DWIGHT: You're a putz!

REGGIE: LA LA LA LA LA LA LA *hums Europop melody played on treacly synth*

"just like belgium" sounds eerily like early '80s e street band, especially the bass and the piano. the de rigueur sax solo serves not as proof, but as confirmation.

imagine the keyboard part in "nobody wins" is a guitar, and you will now know exactly what u2 covering "i will survive" would have sounded like.

"Fascist Faces"

http://youtu.be/NZqCNfdRAnA

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_f3eMmq_ab0/0.jpg

"when I see your fascist faces/ I know I've had enough" you & me, brother

goosestepping incarnation of "Bennie & the Jets" piano line to start the track off with. Was this a response to The Wall?

The frivolity of this thing almost offends me. Osbourne or Taupin or whoever can't summon the energy or inspiration to invigorate an analogy that even strained Elvis Costello.

man you guys are real gluttons for punishment

stfu and get in here, baby

this whole thing is purgatorial for me and Alfred (& anyone else who's taken part). When it's over, we'll have shaved a few years off.

fun imaginative moment: David Geffen's face when he heard "Fascist Faces" for the first time.

I don't feel as unclean as I did reviewing Eagles songs, I'll tell you that.

Cue response...

"Carla/Etude"

http://youtu.be/pG-wedqU_kE

http://www.musicaneo.com/data/upload/157635_w_560x720.jpeg

Anyone who makes the case for EJ as a brilliant composer who's hobbled by his lyricists needs to contend w/ the fact that whenever EJ writes a "proper" instrumental piece (an "etude" here, even), it often winds up sounding like this: pseudo-Romantic shlock, stuff barely worthy of Richard Clayderman. Give me "Little Jeannie" over this goo.

what the bloody hell is this

speaking of Clayderman: I heard him for the first time when I visited my grandma on Sunday. My god his hair.

yes, it's something else. My grandmother was cranking the Clayderman LPs in the '80s, so am familiar with the maestro's work

In what way is this an "etude"? An etude is a study piece, usually for a solo instrument, complex and elaborate so as to increase the performer's skill and dexterity by learning to play it, while at the same time being pleasurable to listen to in a way that scales or arpeggios could never be. This track is neither.

"etude" in this case is "classy-sounding French name" basically. a ribbon on a pig

Reg Porks Out

Anyone who makes the case for EJ as a brilliant composer who's hobbled by his lyricists

do people actually make that case? i think elton owes his career to a single lyricist, and that lyricist owes his to elton. without each other, they are basically very good pianist who tosses off perfectly hummable schlock in his sleep and doesn't see the point in waking up, and very strange poet who can write impenetrable schlock about anything. together, they are mozart and hemingway.

as for this etude, it would work well on an album called music for bad films.

"always John was burdened with Bernie Taupin's opaque and pompous lyrics, the most ambitious of which defy comprehension" Dave Marsh, RS Record Guide

"Fanfare"

http://youtu.be/bKBH3f6BSeE

http://richardhallifax.com/elton.jpg

damn you -- you beat me

wow, that video

should this be part of "Chloe"? Is it all one suite?

it's all sweet

in keeping with the Etude that wasn't an etude, we have a Fanfare that's not a fanfare

"Chloe"

http://youtu.be/kvFP0-7a4BQ

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0BbgJhOIChY/TYp0F3EZ89I/AAAAAAAAEgs/CYC6W23OIt8/s1600/1981.jpg

second US single

The electric piano and "sensitive" guitar licks and chorus harmonies intended to tug listeners' memories of "classic" Elton.

what's going on with this record? After three Mantovani-esque "preludes," we get a half-cooked thing that the 1970 Elton would've left on the stove.

"Heels of the Wind"

http://youtu.be/bzWJpP1ry4Q

http://static1.imagecollect.com/preview/560/4a826556c697448

FINALLY A HOOK

it's as if he was being taxed on them

this is okay! i like the organ riff, and there's even a decent bridge. this would've been a better single than any of the actual ones ("Chloe," "Nobody Wins" "Belgium")

and a classic terrible Bernie Taupin title metaphor to boot

i think this was an Osbourne lyric--homage to the master. video compounds the mess by having Elton in a "traveling salesman/farmer's daughter" scenario

"Elton's Song"

http://youtu.be/R_7LQkSSi1E

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j-9JjY4puOU/Tx4Lf7zstHI/AAAAAAAAdTE/wazipsX5GpE/s1600/IMG_1981.JPG

If the melody were less treacly, I'd consider it one of his best (and least known) songs. Still, it works. Tom Robinson wrote the lyric.

EJ: "I'm searching for a hit. At that point, with the record companies, you had to have a hit. And The Fox didn't really have a hit. It was the first album I made for Geffen; it wasn't a success. I was in good company – David Geffen also signed John Lennon and his record was a stiff until, unfortunately, he was shot, then it made the charts. It was a big slap in the face for me. Again, a lot of drugs involved, but "Elton's Song" is so beautiful, and Tom Robinson's lyric is so beautiful. It reminded me of the film If . . . ., by Lindsay Anderson. It was very homoerotic. I could imagine the boy that I wanted to be, on the parallel bars, swinging with his tight little outfit on and his bare feet. It was the first gay song that I actually recorded as a homosexual song. Rather than "All the Girls Love Alice," it was the first boy-on-boy song I wrote – because Tom, of course, is a gay man, and we became great friends."

wrapping up yet another one:

"The Fox"

http://youtu.be/216IkUaiGtw

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton%2BJohn%2B-%2BThe%2BFox%2B-%2BT-SHIRT-273012.jpg

B-sides next! We can bundle those too.

The title and conceit demand a less, er, enervated treatment.

from the EJ bio: "Geffen had asked Elton to think of a name for the album. The musician thought of the fox, an animal whose cunning seemed a symbol of the way he had conducted his own life...Elton asked Bernie to write lyrics for a song named after the crafty mammal, and Bernie obliged"

internal Geffen memo, summer '81: "Seriously, the fucking "Fox"? Well, maybe the Neil Young tapes will be better."

"Fools in Fashion" (b-side to "Nobody Wins")

http://youtu.be/dR5CbSWYGAQ

Elton attempting Boz Scaggs??

Also: bongos! that bass!

gotta go to the dentist now but so happy some "Fox" B-sides are awaiting me, post-novocaine

wow, this one's something. Yeah, what's with the bass? It's like elton did a scratch vocal while they were trying to mike the bass properly, then figured they'd keep it. Still, better than the symphonic mush-sequence of Side 2

the rest of the Fox-lets

"Can't Get Over Losing You"

http://youtu.be/p9PeRq2kfeM

&

"Tortured"

http://youtu.be/heGV7dw7ASo

http://images.45cat.com/elton-john-tortured-geffen.jpg

"Can't Get Over": contractually-required "country" song from the session

"Tortured": verse is lovely, promises a much; overstuffed chorus doesn't quite deliver

"Dear John"

http://youtu.be/X_0xeHahEZU

http://www.musicko.com/wp-content/uploads/Elton-John-Jump-Up-300x300.jpg

such a lol-eighties sleeve. Shoulder pads!

so we're at Jump Up!, the beginning of his commercial resurgence. Critical too. Christgau!

You say you don't care that it's his best album in seven years? I swear, you young people have no respect. This little guy was a giant, helped keep us sane back then, and though it's true he hasn't come up with a "Honky Cat" or "Bennie and the Jets" ("I Am Your Robot" might qualify if there were still AM radio), it's gratifying enough that after all these faithful years he's started to get good songs out of Gary Osborne (gunning for a Frank Sinatra cover on "Blue Eyes") as well as Bernie Taupin (who really shouldn't ever write about politics). B

For some reason I thought all the big '80s hits were on Too Low for Zero, and had written this one off as another dud. But no, the reconquest starts now!

A bit weird that the same album w/a big maudlin John Lennon tribute starts with a zippy piss-off song called "Dear John"

I'm halfway through the album and, yeah, the enthusiasm is obvious.

"Spiteful Child"

http://youtu.be/VjMDIGnS0cg

http://www.coverdude.com/covers/elton-john-jump-up-1982-inside-cover-55926.jpg

Another uncluttered production on an okay song. So far Jump Up! makes good on title.

Yeah, something seems to have woken up EJ here. Jeff Porcaro's drumming? A better grade of coke in '82? Album was recorded in Montserrat "with breaks for Elton's tennis matches in nearby Antigua," so maybe he was feeling more fit.

"Ball and Chain"

http://youtu.be/8xKvZOxSSOA

http://images.marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/hi/43/43213/eltonjohn1982northamerican.jpg

I love this one: Elton channeling Lindsey Buckingham, doing a song seemingly written for Juice Newton

Pete Townshend on acoustic.

and, yeah, this is brisk, playful, and energetic: the best of the album tracks to date, and better than every single I've heard.

So far Jump Up! has been the big surprise of this survey---I might pick it up when I see it in the $2 LP bin (it's been there often)

Bernie disagrees:

In a 2010 Sirius radio special, John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin, called Jump Up! "one of our worst albums," adding "it's a terrible, awful, disposable album, but it had 'Empty Garden' on it, so it's worth it for that one song.

"Legal Boys"

http://youtu.be/GAQYoWzTnow

http://bootlegdownloads.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ejg.jpg

contender for "most misleading title in Elton John catalog" award

Another not bad song, and brief. Even the Taupin lyric is coherent.

de-lurking again to say col is completely otm about the lindsey buckingham-ness of "ball and chain." but that brief modulation in the middle -- he goes up a full step for a verse and then, as if thinking better of the idea, suddenly modulates back down -- is bizarre, and it sounds like he never quite figured out how to sing through those changes, especially the downward one.

i like the matter-of-fact rawness of "legal boys" but having a hard time wrapping my head around the music. it seems stitched together.

thoughts on the album so far? I'm also leaning towards buying it (it's cheap).

"I Am Your Robot"

http://youtu.be/3GQ_0A3CgxM

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ERcyYzWYWLw/THMUf1nX0cI/AAAAAAAAFho/WhlbI5ke6lI/s640/slide0056_image149.jpg

The chorus is uninspired lyrically and melodically but the verses are tough; it's clear this song is intended as manifesto.

Yeah, this deserves better, refrain-wise, but it's nicely weird: there are so many brutally elongated phrases that it's like EJ's in open revolt against his own melody. "robot" synth effects seem inspired by Peter Davision-era Doctor Who

potentially good song here -- i don't mind the refrain, at least compositionally -- but the arrangement and production are trying way too hard. it's like he's trying to triangulate old glam elton, new new-wave elton and forever AM radio elton in one weird little anthem. redo it as a synth-and-vocoder track, stick it on neil young's trans (release date: eight months from now), and you might have something.

ok, time for one of the big ones...

"Blue Eyes"

http://youtu.be/4CiyKeSnSxk

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120130180105/lyricwiki/images/4/47/Elton_John_-_Blue_Eyes.jpg

A good friend says this is his favorite Elton song. It's not in my top ten but I like it. Simplicity is its strength (thanks, Gary Osborne). Elton takes advantage of his deepened voice, only going for bathos once (BABEE'S got blue EEEEYYYYES)

some gorgeous chord progs here: an opening B-flat 6th to an F major/F minor shift (on "baby's got"), then these dense augmented E-flats on "deep blue sea." Fine vocal, too: sung under the spell of Dean Martin, EJ later said. Agree the Osbourne lyric works well: "I am home again" resounds

yeah he's in a band and he also praises the chords

only thing i'd lose is the cloying electric piano. Porcaro's brush drumming is a nice touch, tho

weird to see it peaked #12 in the US: thought this was a much bigger hit.

big A/C hit though

Yeah I love this song, definitely one of my favorites of his. Chords are incredible, and it's up there with his best low-register performances. Always thought he was channeling Sinatra on this, probably because of the title!

Leslie Cantor2 months ago

This song is so beautiful! It makes me think of the woman of my dreams, Ashley, who has blue eyes, I love you baby!

beautiful performance of a beautiful piece of music with -- i hate to be that guy but someone has to -- a lyric that makes me see blue, like a blue turtleneck on a blue person with blue blue eyes on a blue man group blu-ray disc.

but then again, as we learned from years of john/taupin classics, elton is almost incapable of writing great music without a wtf lyric.

but bernie wrote wtf lyrics for the ages. this gary osborne effort just makes me blue.

stupid question that never occurred to me before: was the line "blue eyes laughing in the sun" meant as a play on "blue eyes crying in the rain," or is that giving osborne too much credit?

no, i think that's about the limit of Osbourne's wordplay.

the lyric's no masterpiece (but I think it generally works and there are some good lines). Shame EJ couldn't have teamed with Trust-era Elvis Costello for it.

"Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny)"

http://youtu.be/RDRmDlJtIdU

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W99CVQqRl2Y/TtqEusUOj6I/AAAAAAAACGU/ngiZtgCJgdU/s1600/elton-lennon-thanksgiving.jpg

McCartney's "Here Today," released the same year, is the only Lennon tribute that matters: it's a man humbled by life, still sounding half in shock from his loss and grateful for his memories.

I'm sure Elton's anguish was real but this tribute veers from the maudlin to the grotesque: the ridden-to-exhaustion metaphors, the harpsichord fills that sounds like they're from The Exorcist.

"JOSHUA LOVEHALL
1 year ago

I remember The Day John Lennon was killed. It was a cold cloudy day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was Big News But there was one bright spot that day. My Niece was born. She only knows about John because every now and then I tell her how on the day she was born A great Man was assasinated."

The hey-look-we-got-keyboards! arrangement is a bit much, agreed, but the verses are okay.

Paul Simon's "The Late Great Johnny Ace" is tops.

"Princess"

http://youtu.be/Dq4c8HAW-l0

http://31.media.tumblr.com/862d95902a9451e4ee39328af7d4a84a/tumblr_mr2ox0GSdJ1syijoxo1_1280.jpg

can we study this photo

are they exchanging gifts? Did Elton go to Tiffany's?

Elton mistakenly gave the president coke in a box.

not quite as epic as the time the Reagans met Crockett and Tubbs in what looks like Tony Montana's mansion:

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C30787-7.jpg

did Philip Michael Thomas borrow a drape as a top coat?

anyhow, "Princess": another track in the ongoing theme of intriguing verses/dull choruses. I was okay with it until that awful "you're my..PRIN CESS" tag thing which is just atrocious

the Reagan Library's "celebrity" photo page is amazing. Here's Cher, Robert Rauchenberg, Bruce Jenner and Tom Cruise with the Gipper in '85:

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C31673-17.jpg

i mean Nancy! Ron was dozing in the lounge during this

love Ronnie's wig.

so uh the song

reagan looking off to the right in elton white house photo looks strikingly like obama looking off to the left in his most iconic pose.

also, don johnson's face is oranger than john boehner's.

nothing to say about this one, eh?

Using his upper register in the chorus was an unexpected surprise; so are the guitar squiggles. Again, I'm impressed by how chunky this mix sounds. Chris Thomas seems to have thought about how he wanted Elton's songs arranged (they would have been lost in the stew on 21 at 33 and The Fox).

agreed with alfred that this is a really good-sounding song, and with col that it's musically a good verse (about as much as you could expect of a mid-period elton john album track, maybe even more) tied to an unfortunate chorus.

but wow those lyrics. i knew gary osborne was bad, but "you are my princess/you make me smile/you make my life seem worthwhile"? was elton sentenced to write songs with osborne as punishment for a drug conviction?

also, that squiggly synth lead at the end makes no sense at all unless it was played on a keytar, in which case i understand.

the concluding synth solo = musical equiv of Osborne

"Where Have All the Good Times Gone"

http://youtu.be/M7OlV1tBIlo

http://www.queenconcerts.com/inc/photos-guest/1982-11-19.jpg

I shuddered when I saw the title; it turns out to be Spinners-like medium tempo rock-soul number.

yes, was bracing myself for a bad Kinks cover

what's odd is that there's another version issued as a B-side of "Ball and Chain"---might as well cover it now:

http://youtu.be/_jb0qNqZ5OA

I like the LP version much more: a throwback in sound to A Single Man. It foreshadows the Motown-Baby Boomer nostalgia mush of The Big Chill and Rod Stewart's godawful "Motown Song" (I guessed it was an Osbourne lyric, but no, it's Bernie), but it swings a lot more than the latter and sounds great: strings are recorded/mixed well. The bridge sounds like Elton had an idea that he forgot to develop.

One more song left. Unless it blows, I'm thinking this IS his best album since '75.

One more song left. Unless it blows..

there's still a chance: it's long and it's "political"

while the chorus directs me to remember the four tops, i find myself remembering two earlier eltons instead. the electric piano and strings intro made me want to hear "philadelphia freedom," while the nostalgia for young and innocent days made me think of "crocodile rock" and how there's really no incarnation of elton that makes me want to listen to nostalgia for young and innocent days. better when he embodies it than when he tries to tell us about it.

and, hey, young and innocent days is a kinks song. and while "where have all the good times gone" is not a cover, the phrasing of the chorus -- "won't somebody tell me" -- is pretty close to the kinks. intentional, perhaps?

"All Quiet on the Western Front"

http://youtu.be/NK-zDxQKXOY

http://www.battlefield-tours.com/Western_Front_stagnation.jpg

The first twenty seconds reminded me of early eighties intro music to a PBS documentary.

Peter Minagro
3 years ago

Notice how this song seems like its going to end like 5 times and keeps going. Well that is in reference to this war because as everyone at the time thought this war was going to end on 4 or 5 different occations but kept going. Just thought that was a brillient thought by Elton to end the song that way.

Peter Minagro OTM

from the bio: "In a rare editorial mode, Elton demanded one deletion from Bernie's lyric. "There was one line that said 'thin white men in stinking tents'. And I said, "Bernie, I can't sing 'thin white men in stinking tents.' It's not an attractive line to sing. So we changed it."

this is flat-out awful, an unwelcome return of The Fox. What is with that intro? yeah, '80s PBS documentary incidental music about sums it up. Why are there jingle bells and cathedral organ fills on this thing? (One assumes we'll get a "choir" at some point and we do.) EJ sounds like a dying seal at the start of the chorus; Porcaro sounds like he's performing CPR on the track a half-dozen time.

Still, lop this dud off the end and Jump Up! is the best thing EJ did since Rock of the Westies

Jump Up! B side:

"Hey Papa Legba"

http://youtu.be/npQZfJtE__Y

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PA-7165446.jpg

"The Retreat"

http://youtu.be/yB-_GI-Z7WA

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fEvQ7wKKRko/0.jpg

Aptly named b-side of "Princess." A Fox outtake.

Tomorrow: the full Elton comeback.

one more! "Take Me Down to the Ocean," B-side of "Empty Garden"

http://youtu.be/c_DaEm6mfIs

have we encountered one good EJ B-side yet? Still, I'd probably put "Papa Legba" in place of "Western Front" on Jump Up

"Papa Legba" and "The Retreat" aren't bad, even if the latter sounds like "Harmony" w/out the beautiful chorus.

"the retreat" could've worked on desperado! if only he'd ditched that synth raveup at the end and brought in bernie leadon instead.

I'm holding out some hope that "Strangers", which we missed, is a classic.

Lolling hard at the cover of this b-sides comp (a bootleg?) btw:
http://d3cvzp1meg27xm.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/elton_john_flip_it_over.jpg

...neatly, it encompasses the non-LP story to date in this thread.

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-5203186-1387358142-3931.jpeg

Too Low For Zero!

"Cold As Christmas"

http://youtu.be/hohf6KUndBM

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/312yE9oEmAL.jpg

an album cover that screams "1983"

The weak link in the EJ "Christmas" quadrilogy (or pentalogy if you count the medley he played for a '73 Peel Session).

If you have an "I'm Still Standing," how do you not lead off your album with it? So I admire the sequencing gall here.

Whatever, guys. A lovely ballad – and what a hook. He remembered to write some!

a solid ballad that someone in nashville should be covering right now. agreed that it's an odd/ballsy choice to open the album. but the segue into tomorrow's song works quite well! nice, pleasing contrast there.

a low-key album opener for his best '80s album that (again, following the pattern here) isn't really an xmas song.

Missed a few selections over the weekend. "Blue Eyes" my fave of his non-Bernie tracks, with lead vocals that roll deeply into the piano's left-hand zone in the chorus, highlighting the interesting key changes that surround them (often with jazzy licks from above!) with mixed time signatures further accenting the song's jazzy appeal that is anything but 'smooth' or 'lite'. V well done.

"I'm Still Standing"

http://youtu.be/ZHwVBirqD2s

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/0hh0xWKPrf0/hqdefault.jpg

so, this one: hooks on top of hooks, chased by hooks. A verse that's catchier than any refrain on EJ's complete oeuvre, 1976-1981, then a knockout chorus that's then topped by a refrain that quotes the Beatles, ffs. And it's nicely tricky--the opening suggests it's in A minor, with an A major bass & then, whammo, the verse leaps into bright A major---introspection kicked aside for bravado.

anecdote from the video shoot in Cannes: Elton's dutifully trying to learn the choreography, then Simon LeBon shows up. Eight vodka martinis later, EJ trashes his hotel room, breaks his manager's nose and demands to be filmed while he does elaborate stripteases w/his various costumes.

One of the advantages of composing lyrics first: the composer can match tonal shifts in the verses.

Andy Taylor:

There were lots of celebrities around in Cannes and one day we discovered that Elton John was in town, filming the video for his song I'm Still Standing. This was before Elton became teetotal, so he was still a steaming party animal; we went up to see him at his hotel and spent the afternoon getting blasted on Martinis. We decided it would be a laugh to get him drunk and we were slinging the drinks down him 'Ooh, you are lovely boys,' he screeched, loving every minute of it. We got him so drunk that eventually he went upstairs and threw a wobbler in his suite. It caused all sorts of chaos - but it was a great party

I can't remember when I first heard this song; it's always been around, part of the ether. A fabulous song to karaoke, I must say.

This was the only Elton John song I knew for a while. Growing up, my mom had an audio tape containing some MTV best-of-the-80's countdown recorded off TV (I think "I Need You Tonight" by INXS was #1). That tape got a LOT of play on car trips, and ended up starting my love for a few different bands. I was at the age when a switch from a major verse to a minor chorus blew my mind, so I loved this song (but even nowadays, I appreciate how seamless that switch is). I never saw a picture of him until years later but it pretty much matched the mental picture I had constructed based on this song.

One of the advantages of composing lyrics first: the composer can match tonal shifts in the verses.

Well the interesting thing about this song is how it goes counterintuitive to expectations, maybe even counter to what Bernie had in mind. The major key verse details the broken past, and the minor chorus is the triumphant part. The music undercuts the message to me, makes him seem desperate to convince himself, and I don't think there's anything in the lyrics that suggests desperation otherwise.

And part of the desperation comes from his super over-the-top vocal too, of course

One of the few survivor gestures that works because the artist embraces what made him a comer in the first place.

again, this only got to #12 in the US?, like "Blue Eyes." I was certain this was top 10, at least.

he'll have plenty of top tens from this point on

One of only a handfew of albums I heard most often originally on 8 track cartridge

he'll have plenty of top tens from this point on

yeah, that's the weird thing: some of the upcoming singles charted really high but don't seem as omnipresent as "I'm Still Standing" or even "Little Jeannie". It might simply be that I wasn't listening to pop radio as much in '85 or '88, though

"i'm still standing" was huge on mtv which billboard never factored into their charts so it probably was bigger than some other hits. i'd always viewed this as the big comeback but he'd actually started to manage that somewhat already and it makes sense - this isn't the song that gets you yr old job/old girl back, this is the song about the night on the town after you get yr old job/girl back. i know i'd heard elton songs before this (remember 'empty garden' esp) but this was the first one where i was aware of 'elton john' as phenomenon, i can remember my parents and their friends talking about it and his comeback (the costumes esp) alot at this time. i'm not sure if it bites a specific motown hook but it definitely seems of a piece w/ the other motown copping brit hits of the 80s - "wake me up before you go-go", "this charming man", "when smokey sings", etc.

The album's biggest hit and Elton standard is a couple days away. In my mind I smush "I Guess..." and "Sad Songs (Say So Much)" together, and it makes sense: I thought "I Guess" peaked in '83 but actually it was Jan. '84 while "Sad Songs" peaked summer '84. He was cranking them out again like the old days.

In my mind I smush "I Guess..." and "Sad Songs (Say So Much)" together - i do this too, it doesn't help that they're both vaguely meta w/o actually being either blues or a sad song

"Too Low for Zero"

http://youtu.be/qYMdGUiuVA4

http://davidmcgough.com/photos/thumbs/1984-%20Elton%20John,%20Liza%20Minelli,%20NYC.jpg

in which Elton discovers New Pop, as Marcello might say. Lots of ILXors love this tune.

If "Ball and Chain" was a tribute to Lindsey Buckingham, this is like EJ providing a template for B's '80s solo works and even Tango in the Night. An all-but-solo recording (all the synths are Elton, and he even allegedly programmed the drum machine), it ebbs and flows, never quite resolving, just content to exist as this glittering mesh of sound. As an occasional insomniac, I'll just say "Zero" captures the bleary feel of a 3 AM where sleep is an elusive promise and waking life exists as a blur. Just marvelous stuff.

I'm late to this, but while I don't quite think it's marvelous it does work up a fairly strong head of steam: Elton, lost in a cloud of technology he's just mastered, distilling the self-pity of the last five albums into momentum and clusters of notes.

"too low for zero" suggests elton is, at least for a moment, following a similar course to his contemporary robert palmer. would like to hear more like this.

"Religion"

http://youtu.be/CIAYTU7QhAk

http://www.bobgruen.com/files/Rockers/Rockers_bw/R-206_Stones_KRichards,TTurner,DBowie1983_Gruen.jpg

I put this song on a CD-R a few years ago. EJ and Taupin are back to writing (semi-)coherent story-songs. The generous vocal doesn't condescend to its subject; I particularly love those bits when it jumps an octave ("somebody up there likes MEEEEEEE"). Phil Johnstone doesn't overplay the fills or solos. A near perfect album track. How John-Taupin couldn't keep cranking these things out is one of the mysteries of songwriting and chemistry.

has a country artist ever done an LP of Elton compositions? It's overdue if not.

Another good one: it's nice to see Taupin actually managing to be witty. It's telling that while another big '83 comeback by a '70s Brit rock star was 3 singles and then some outrageous filler, Too Low for Zero has a real consistency all the way through, its quality-to-dud ratio up there with like ...Piano Player's.

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KYAVn8ons‎

http://www.the80sman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/elton_john_i_guess_thats_why_they_call_it_the_blues_1-e1330968332280.jpg

THE BIG ONE

My favorite EJ song. He's right: the melody is such that he can play it as fast or as slow as he wants, in any arrangement he wants. I love his controlled dread -- falling in love is dangerous. Dig where the stresses fall ("Just stare into SPACE/Picture my FAAACCE/In your HANDS").

your favorite, eh? I took a while: 11-yr-old me, though vaguely scandalized by the "rolling like thunder under the covers" line, resented it for taking up space on the chart from the Fixx and Duran Duran, but time schooled me. The melody's as sturdy as an iron bridge & his singing is amazing (as you said, those wonderful stresses!: another run's the way he drags out "cryy in the niiight if it heeelps" and then compresses "but more than ever" as a quick aside). Or the way he backs into establishing the key, not reaching "home" until he hits "forever" in the verse.

as a kid "rolling like thunder under the covers" amazed me! Sex in an EJ song!

i'm suprised to find this having become my fave EJ song over the decades. Wonderfully un-oblique Bernie lyric, in striking contrast to his work from a decade earlier. "While i'm away, dust out the demons inside, and it won't be long/before you and me run, to the place in our hearts, where we hide". Just gorgeous. Like the melody, the easy, loping rhythm, the cleanly-produced mix of piano, guitar, drums, backing vocals, and Stevie's harmonica. A deserved classic.

"Crystal"

http://youtu.be/blgffkzRWIM

http://www.stickboydaily.com/images/2013/09/Elton-John-11.jpg

col! Another Buckingham-esque strummer! Imagine "Ball and Chain" and "Too Low for Zero" mating.

i like this one it's got a vague Electroclash vibe. also sounds a bit like Phoenix.

catching up on "Crystal"--yeah, this another thing where he's tributing Buckingham but also giving LB pointers on where to go next. good one (this whole album's ace so far)

now for Single #3:

"Kiss the Bride"

http://youtu.be/qbDAp0lKolc

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HvCNHaaadrI/S7uJQFpXxoI/AAAAAAAAJlo/DRtIZMdLwYQ/s1600/eltonjohn16.jpg

this is crummier-sounding than I remember. Thud-thwacking drummer sounds like the 15-yr-old kid who practices in his garage in my neighborhood

Nah, say it: his worst single since "Chloe." The knockkneed rhythm, hamhanded transition from bridge to chorus -- it mirrors the shrill insistence on his heterosexuality. Fortunately, "Wrap Her Up" is worse, but we'll get to it soon.

hamhanded transition from bridge to chorus

yeah,that's a dreadful bit. sounds like a man frantically blowing up an air mattress. & I do recall this thing being used over all the TV clips from EJ's ill-fated marriage.

sounds like a man frantically trying to get a woman to blow him

double pack singles didn't last long did they? they were part of that 80s multi-format crap to blag into the charts i'm guessing.

"Whipping Boy"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsnnNRTb6Fg‎

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RL4UuEhnH1Y/R5mJinTR9QI/AAAAAAAAAc0/Qbfa6ENcqkw/s1600-h/Elton%2BJohn%2B%26%2BRenate.jpg

http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Renate+Blauel+Singer+Elton+John+Turns+60+PAmZhoPfG6Rx.jpg

fucking hell that outfit

Crap drumming from "Kiss the Bride" gets an extension. Just second-rate stuff, from the sub-T. Rex guitar hooks to EJ's hoarse-sounding vocal to a Taupin lyric that seems written on an airport lounge napkin. EJ tries to salvage the song with a manic-sounding bridge. Worried Too Low's going into a nosedive it won't recover from.

The guitars recycle "I'm Still Standing," the melody "Crocodile Rock."

He recorded no perfect albums (maybe Honky Chateau?), so I don't mind rocking filler

iirc Marcello made a good argument that if you axe the songs between "Grey Seal" & "Your Sister Can't Dance" on Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd, you've got a pretty flawless album

that's a lot of nixing to get to your flawless album.

also, wait, is he nixing "all the girls love alice"???

yeah, guess so! (i wouldn't agree: "Seen this Movie Too" is also a keeper for me. But "jamaica jerk off" is so rancid a song that it derails the LP's flow and it takes a while to get back into it

"Saint"

http://youtu.be/3ngLTUHp-XE

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/L05ZBxN9frA/0.jpg

the opening synths brought up Fox "suite" memories, so when it up-shifted to a thudding power-ballad chorus, I wasn't sure if it was an improvement. Feels like there's a better song in here somewhere---it's diffuse & overlong

now see this is my pick for TLFZ's worst.

"One More Arrow"

http://youtu.be/EOWUXppac2I

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/cms/binary/5813216.jpg?size=620x400s

a weepie (and arguably a gay song to counter the desperately-hetero "Kiss the Bride"), w/ EJ singing in a falsetto that's almost out of his vocal range.

Don't think Too Low quite recovered from the body blow that was "Kiss the Bride"---2nd side is a bit flabby---but the run of "Cold as Christmas" to "Crystal" would make a hell of an EP. Curious to see if Elton continues the streak with the next one (but there's like 22 B-sides to get through first)

on "One More Arrow" he's trying to remember something he's forgotten, which could only have come after "Kiss the Bride."

Zero B-side binge:

"I Guess Why they Call it the Blues" B-side:

"Choc Ice Goes Mental": http://youtu.be/V_88MyTrw_o

US single had "the Retreat," which we covered already, right?

"I'm Still Standing" B-side:

"Earn While You Learn": http://youtu.be/bP87fmu8_o0

"Kiss the Bride" b-side:

"Dreamboat": http://youtu.be/aqs4qfBJC6I

the reason there's no notorious Elton bootlegs or "lost songs" is that he seems to have put out everything he made in the studio at some point. "Dreamboat" hails from A Single Man

"Earn While You Learn," which is not bad, is an Elton maxim that Taupin never followed.

Insane -- I can't find a studio version of "Restless"! Yet fans have uploaded 620 live versions; he performed it a lot during this period, I guess.

anyway this sounds closest to the album version

"Restless"

http://youtu.be/52DgMEINazc

http://static.musictoday.com/store/bands/1940/product_medium/MUDD181.JPG

I can hear coke beginning to take its toll on his vocal. The enthusiasm substitutes for a blustery arrangement. Still, a better "Kiss the Bride."

yeah, studio version is v. close to that link. Agree his voice is starting to show some signs of wear, but the song's capable enough to fill the "Elderberry Wine"/"Saturday Night's All Right" slot on the album. With Geffen realizing Elton was the only one of his big signings to actually keep getting hits, there's pressure for a quick follow-up, so EJ, Chris Thomas and the rest grind out Breaking Hearts in a couple of weeks. I'm curious how ragged it sounds now.

Listened on Spotify to the album version. Vocal suits the song, I think. He seems to be going for a Stones vibe here.

"Slow Down Georgie" also looks impossible to find. Breaking Hearts: grievously un-YouTubed

"Who Wears These Shoes?"

http://youtu.be/PFonOVlhBWI

http://www.rock-shot.com/action/John-Elton_1984_1.jpg

Second single. More sexist drivel, and he still sounds hoarse, but the hook isn't bad. I don't remember hearing this at the time.

I do remember this one: it got some minor airplay. the guitar hook's okay but the chorus starts to become punishing around the 3-minute mark. Video is a horror (first Elton toupee appearance?)

The voice problems might be the polyps he eventually removed in '86.

Not even as good as Into the Old Man's Shoes, which I always get this one confused with. Best Elton shoe fetish song is probably Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes.

(Slow Down Georgie didn't do much for me either. Things do improve shortly though.)

"Breaking Hearts (Ain't What It Used to Be)"

http://youtu.be/4KjrgeiJlcM

http://s1.jrnl.ie/media/2012/05/PA-79880241.jpg

Always liked this one: it sounds like a refugee from Elton John sequenced after "Who Wears These Shoes." The self-pitying roue lyric works, EJ's push into falsetto in the chorus a nice touch. The lack of a bridge or solo or something to break up the run of verses/choruses does give it an overpacked feel---the song needs a bit more room to breathe.

why wasn't this tune a single instead of "Passengers"?

"Li'l Frigerator

http://youtu.be/YYt9q9F5YZo

http://cbswcbsfm.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/elton-john.jpg?w=594

or: Elton's "She's So Cold."

here's to Elton for making a halfway-listenable chorus out of Taupin's "lil' 'frigerator..get away from my soul!" points off for ersatz Chuck Berry solo and central casting '80s saxophone

I don't mind it. B-side material though.

brace yourself for tomorrow. possible all-time low of this project

too low for zero, let alone the li'l frigerator

Too lowdown bad refrigerator

"Passengers"

http://youtu.be/jH-TF0BZy44

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d_rwVsCaNHA/TailAKKnA2I/AAAAAAAAKz0/p9-KjDAhYm4/s1600/eltonjohn17.jpg

why?

Unusual for this period, a much bigger hit in England (top five).

Why?

this charted higher than every Prince single issued in Britain 1984-1989

this is barely a song. It's like some drunken bus singalong routine that somehow wound up being one of EJ's biggest hits of the mid80s

It's great, you menks. OK, it sounds like Men At Work (and even they might have thought twice about putting this on one of their albums) but as vaguely "ethnic" new wave pop goes, we had to put up with much worse in the early 80s.

Actually, I must have heard it dozens of times on the radio before I realised it was Elton.

I've read praise for this song occasionally 'round here.

At last! One of my most hated songs ever. Even as a 10-year-old listening to the radio I was like, "What IS this shit?"

it has something to do with apartheid and things

It certainly has the power to terrorise a government into changing its ways.

this was a hit? i have absolutely no recollection of this existing. it's not terrible at all. it might even be good. it sounds like a piece of paul mccartney schlock that could have wound up on the white album as easily as it could have wound up on pipes of peace, and no matter what decade it was you'd ask yourself why is paul mccartney doing this, but then you'd wake up one day and rhe song would suddenly pop into your head, separated from all context, and you'd think to yourself, "wow, this is pretty damn catchy. he was pretty good at that,"

and now that i've let the album keep playing in the background and i'm hearing the proper singer-songwriter elton john stuff that follows, i'm kind of wishing for more like it.

i may wake up tomorrow and feel differently, though.

also, as vaguely ethnic pop goes, i'll take this over "ob-la-di ob-la-da," "island girl" or anything i can remember off the top of my head from "the lion king," which admittedly is not much, but still.

it sounds like a piece of paul mccartney schlock that could have wound up on the white album as easily as it could have wound up on pipes of peace,

yeah, it's a bit like if McCartney had hit #5 with "Temporary Secretary."

more like "Waterfalls"

or "mull of kintyre."

"In Neon"

http://youtu.be/Pe_4rZwegLc

http://eil.com/Gallery/298530b.jpg

A single in America. Better than "Passengers" -- barely.

Elton resembles mid-period Orson Welles on that single sleeve

I have a very dim memory of this one: the "in NEON" hook rang a bell when I heard it again. A vaguely-country "Candle in the Wind" sequel with a chorus that Elton has to sell a bit too hard. As w/ "Passengers," it's odd that this got the single nod when EJ had the title track as an option

some quality parentheses going on.

"Burning Bridges"

http://youtu.be/_o9M9EW-aRk

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_wgXA9ZnjHg/0.jpg

Another absurd Taupin metaphor (maybe he listened to Talking Heads' "Love --> Building on Fire") but in the service of a good ballad. I'm thinking that the erosion of Elton's high end has made him a better balladeer -- if the material is sturdy.

agreed that his voice is in a nice place here. the arrangement is very captain fantastic (something about the keyboard sounds and the backing vocals, especially). but the melody falls just a hair short, and the joylessness on display here is part of what had me begging for more "passengers" a couple days ago.

yeah a bit of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" in the melody/arrangement. Even by Taupin standards the lyric is ridiculous. You get the sense EJ took on Taupin's most batshit lines like they were Saturday-level NY Times crossword puzzles. & he almost solves it here! but all those clunky "ing" rhymes in the chorus take him down.

"Did He Shoot Her?"

http://youtu.be/CiAgM8VgSFM

http://cloud.lomography.com/576/406/75/f1af89f557af9ca53a9ab28361acc3d9d36378.jpg

poor Renata

so what the hell is this thing?

he shot her with a barrage of tortured metaphors. and she used to be my girl, so now i will do the same to him. also, "it's the 20th century now."

as always, we will forgive bernie when elton figures out that saturday crossword that his lyrics pose (nice way to put it, col). not that he needs our forgiveness; elton has the power to actually make his lyrics be good. elton, unfortunately, does not come close to solving the puzzle here.

poor Renata indeed. Maybe one day there'll be a Todd Haynes film inspired by her

this is a bit of car wreck---Elton seems to be throwing out everything he can think of and nothing really works. Is there sitar in this thing? Surprised there isn't a vuvuzela solo by the end of it

love to imagine Taupin heard Richard & Linda Thompson's "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" and was inspired to write this.

Tomorrow: the classic.

So Breaking Hearts is a notch below TLFZ. Bashing out in two weeks in early '84 isn't the same as bashing it out in two weeks in early '73.

yeah, TLFZ had more unity (all Elton albums have a hodgepodge of styles---his LPs are variety shows in which he plays all the roles---but there's more of a "feel" to TLFZ). Breaking Hearts is even more all over the place than usual, though its sequencing deploys the top-rank songs well by spacing them out.

i think the end of the "revival" is nigh: next album could be a tough one.

turn 'em on:

"Sad Songs (Say So Much)"

http://youtu.be/X23v5_K7cXk

http://burningthegrounddjpault.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/a-front12.jpg

Whenever "Sad Songs" came on the transistor radio that we listened to on school bus trips, this one kid would wait until the line "and it's times like these when we all need to hear the radio" and yell "Not this time!" & flick off the radio with a grand flourish of the wrist.

As this was fairly witty for 6th grade, it got some big laughs. Then he kept doing it seemingly every time "Sad Songs" came on during summer '84 and he soon became profoundly irritating, as you have to wait quite a while for that line (it's halfway through the first verse) & by that point you're committed to the song or you're (at least my case) just bracing for him to do his schtick.

this was a valuable lesson on how quickly an inspired bit can rot into sheer irritation. I hope it's served me well over the years.

Funnily enough, this one has disappeared from local easy listening radio, after years as an evergreen, therefore it sounds fresh now. I love the harmonies (AHHHHHHH). Another engaged EJ vocal with odd points of emphasis ("REACH into your ROOM WO-OH-OH-OHHH!), compensating for a tinny keyboard sound.

Not a fan of this one. The song is a bit Drifters (70s edition), with maybe a touch of Steve Winwood in there as well. A blueprint for much of the mediocrity to come from Elton.

top twenty Elton this one.

So after a couple of b-sides we explore the majesty of Ice on Fire.

in which the singles could be the worst things on the album (but maybe not)

"sad songs" is yet another one that sounds ripe for a nashville cover. never particularly loved it, and i still think of sasson jeans when i hear it (one of the few ads i can think of that tangibly damaged a song for me). but it's well constructed and produced and catchy, and it's easy to see why it was a hit. the one thing that irks me after hearing it anew: the "sad songs they say..." bridge, about three minutes in, goes nowhere and sounds like really obvious padding.

but when after the bridge he returns (SOOO turn'em ON-ON!) it's with gusto

The bridge does feel like EJ throwing out an idea and not really taking it anywhere: it's just a garnish. But a nice one! agree that it really helps sock home the chorus.

I like "Sad Songs" now far more than I did then, esp. as Alfred said, the skill of Elton's phrasing, where the emphases sometimes don't land where you expect them to, esp. in the verse. Like "I'm Still Standing" you could argue it's EJ subtly undermining the lyric (minor key triumphant chorus in the former, cheery C major "sad song" here)

Christgau, praising it and "I Guess That's Why..." as EJ's best eighties songs, said it worked despite it not being particularly sad.

but when after the bridge he returns (SOOO turn'em ON-ON!) it's with gusto

that's true. i attribute the gusto to how happy he is that the bridge is over. "take me back to the tonic! please! ahhhh, phew!"

if you're in the mood for song murders, here's a bellow-a-thon version with Elton and Rod Stewart from last year:

http://youtu.be/oIzqM4s3Wmg?t=4m5s

"A Simple Man:

http://youtu.be/nA-ObZ6XrP8

http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/bbc/images/060eltonjohn/02.jpg

as opposed to "A Single Man"?

there was also the mildly funky "Lonely Boy", which deserved to be on the LP more than "Did He Shoot Her?" at least:

http://youtu.be/AgIVSle4iVo

& finally "Tortured," the flip of the UK "Who Wears These Shoes." again, a cut above like 1/4 of the tracks on the LP

http://youtu.be/Tm0mlaW36N8

talk box on "Lonely Boy"!

Is this the first time the B-sides are better than album tracks?

yeah, I'd say so.

should we do the crazy Millie Jackson duet single before Ice on Fire? (i think it precedes the album)

that's fine. "Tortured" sounds like a Fox outtake written for Barry Manilow.

There was one more B-side, a live recording of a cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". It dates from 1977 though, so arguably outside scope for this project.

This may be it:
http://youtu.be/CnDx6e-qT-8

Don't think I know this recording but I remember fondly the 11 minute plus version he did at one of his Moscow gigs in 1979; included a couple of amazing extended piano solos.

thanks Jeff. i'd assumed that one was nowhere to be found on YT (it's weird all the B-sides are there but not the lead-off track of the album, which is fairly well-regarded by fans). It's okay---i'd rather have had an extended piano bit instead of the guitar solo

"Act of War!"

http://youtu.be/omEj8lzaqbE

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/cLiLVv87Ggc/hqdefault.jpg

The mullet years.

the video is the most 1985 of anything 1985 things

if only EJ and Millie had dueted in 1975. or even 1995. This was an ill-starred collaboration. Was Elton trying to go for a Frankie Goes to Hollywood thing? Subtle Cold War metaphor lyric by Taupin a sign of things to come w/"Nikita"

I was hoping the video would end on some pun of "too low for 0".......

rather loud this one

it's tough when you hit the 3-minute mark and they haven't made it past "40" in the countdown. Still, at least soon afterward you get Millie dramatically ripping up a promo poster for Ice on Fire

wait till you hear tomorrow's

oh no. was hoping for a slow descent into the pit before we hit "Wrap it Up"

"This Town"

http://youtu.be/KOKlVulidqw

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/03/article-2227404-15D56307000005DC-339_468x335.jpg

Check out Elton's Emulators!

wow, overcrowded enough of a mix? Makes "Sussudio" sound drab. Cocaine + hordes of session musicians, including 4 different rhythm sections (EJ disbanded his core band again, keeping only Davey Johnstone) + a set of new synthesizers. Bizarre to think Gus Dudgeon produced this.

yeah it's a total "Sussudio" rip

between Breaking Hearts and Ice on Fire Elton discovered eighties production and Phil Collins 12"s.

"Cry to Heaven"

http://youtu.be/J2TL4885dJw

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MHYPEePejb0/Sk3dH0W4_yI/AAAAAAAAAV0/eP-4HiIzvaU/s400/elton+john.jpg

the video, featuring Elton in clown makeup and w/ a beret-wearing toddler being pursued by a bulldozer, remains one of the finest WTF-seriously-WTF moments of the late 20th Century

it's like the Max Fischer Players trying to do an episode of Kieslowski's Dekalog. anyhow, it's a nice distraction from a song as lyrically gruesome as it's dreadfully arranged (love the doorbell chimes upon the title line's appearance)

And the video is the most literal realization of a song since "Tight Connection to My Heart."

i'd only wished they'd shown the sniper sleeping at night in the burned-out subway

finally gets going melodically, in a jacques brel kind of way, around the 3:15 mark ("no birthday songs/to sing again").

in the meantime i'm wondering if that beret he found on the street today was the kind you find in a secondhand store.

"Soul Glove"

http://youtu.be/4A9fF-R_UtE

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/100601/GAL-10Jun01-4743/media/PHO-10Jun01-228646.jpg

you can see Bernie T. trying to do some kind of play on "hand in glove" & then the metaphor just balloons out of control

see I looked at the title and started singing "Soul Love."

"To shave in someone else's mirror
Is one desire I haven't dreamed of yet"

Hysterically arranged but not terrible.

late Cold War nostalgia moment

"Nikita"

http://youtu.be/CKmXRwjWYUM

http://hitriders.be/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Foto-Nikita.jpg

I like this -- another solid vocal performance. Lovely bass.

yes! the first elton hit i can remember really reacting to as a normal hit as opposed to some song by some guy my parents think is a big deal. similar to but not nearly as heavy handed as sting's 'russians', similar to alot of the pop culture of the time doing this tip-toe into rehumanizing the russians, whether this was due to gorbachev or just the tide breaking against the ott anti-russkie sentiment of reagan's first term i don't know. what's interesting to me is the extent to which the trend starts w/ english artists and that sense of doomed fatalism there - nikita (a masculine name despite the video) will 'never' know anything about elton's home or hugs, sting dreaming for at best nuclear annihilation being held off for a few more years, you don't really get any optimism until american artists start exhibiting the thaw w/ stallone's 'if i can change and you can change, everybody can change' that same winter. six years later the soviet union was gone.

yeah, this is v. much part of that fatalistic 1984-85 period, just before Gorbachev, whose common theme was "at some point we're going to nuke each other, and it's a shame as we're all the same deep down." As you said, Sting's "Russians" being a far more pompous version of this than E's "Nikita." There was also the Western idea of the USSR being an old prison whose citizens just want to run away and go shopping and bowling and watch cable TV (see Elton's video); that the USSR was trapped in history and no longer made sense to its citizens, even its rulers.

The song's better than I recall---there's a feel of the Cars' "Drive" in its verses, i think, and the fretless bass/rhythm guitar helps shuffle it along nicely. EJ predicts "the Final Countdown" in the synth solo (as he had with that B-side whose title I forget).

Western idea of the USSR being an old prison whose citizens just want to run away and go shopping and bowling and watch cable TV - haha yes, 'they love blue jeans! but cannot get them because communism!', ninotchka filtered thru kmart was a definite theme of the time.

bizarrely, the actress who played Nikita in the vid. cut an answer song of sorts a year later:

http://youtu.be/uLxpHFHGDdg

two years later billy joel in moscow, the year after that paul mccartney's choba b cccp, as pop enacted its own form of perestroika.

Can't underestimate the relief expended by libs -- hell, everyone -- when Gorby came along.

-there's a feel of the Cars' "Drive" in its verses

Yes! It's the synth and rhythm.

Also, in 1984, his reelection secured, Reagan revised a campaign script, much to the consternation of his furious aides, to add the following:

The common interests have to do with the things of everyday life for people everywhere. Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally, and there was no language barrier to keep them from getting acquainted. Would they then debate the differences between their respective governments? Or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children and what each other did for a living?

Before they parted company, they would probably have touched on ambitions and hobbies and what they wanted for their children and problems of making ends meet. And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan, ``Wasn't she nice? She also teaches music.'' Or Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn't like about his boss. They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. Above all, they would have proven that people don't make wars.

People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. They want to have some of the good things over and above bare subsistence that make life worth living. They want to work at some craft, trade, or profession that gives them satisfaction and a sense of worth. Their common interests cross all borders.

"Too Young"

http://youtu.be/m7dQbYxmb-M

http://www.waynesleep.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Freddie_Elton.jpg

with Roger Taylor and John Deacon!

sorta scandalous May/December romance from Elton, but one so plodding & creaky you wonder if it's about an 80 yr old courting a 60-yr old. Roger Taylor does what he can: military snare tattoos, what sounds like tympani at one point. But enduring all 5+ minutes of this is like being stuck at a train crossing

I don't know what they do, honestly. And EJ's intensity does not relent.

you ready for this?

"Wrap Her Up"

http://youtu.be/_RaMkpJGOz8

http://burningthegrounddjpault.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/a-front7.jpg

where do I begin?

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

"Writers: Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Charlie Morgan, Paul Westwood, Davey Johnstone, Fred Mandel"

6 co-composers for this?

Everyone in the room!

blow for everyone!

Man this song sucks. Sad that with 6 writers not one of them was able to see that. Maybe it's a diffusion of responsibility thing.

Two men flapping their wings and clucking trying to convince themselves, the six writers, engineer, producer, wives, girlfriends that they're straight. What a spectacle.

whosever idea it was to have George Michael wail the same falsetto melody over and over again should be set upon by wolves

i'm convinced the video is someone's attempt to undermine the "hey, no we love ladies" thing: the Zelig-like Elton lusting over Nancy Reagan, Joan Collins, QE II etc.

Just saw the video for the first time - way more restraint than I was expecting.

only gay men lusted after Nancy Reagan tbh

robin thicke should steal this groove for "blurred lines 2."

"Satellite"

http://youtu.be/UByU1GDRzZ4

http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1895/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1895-43246.jpg

AsianPopRock
4 months ago

This was one of those songs I cranked to the hilt, and often sung to the top of my lungs, unconcerned with how I sounded to anyone anywhere around me! OH, YEAH! I just let it rip! Now, I understand this man is "the butt of many jokes" because of his unappealing nature, and marriage to another man, and "Liberace-Like reputation of our day," but let me tell all a little something who are too young, or too uninformed to understand. . . "THIS VERY MAN WAS ONE BAD, BAD, BOY IN HIS DAY!"

OH, YEAH! I mean, Elton John was a notorious womanizing rake back in the day

this song isn't bad, really. Good vocal. According to the experts in that YT comment thread, it was remixed notably for the CD?

The arrangement tries for eighties synth funk.

can you find a decent copy of "Tell Me What the Papers Say"?

no, couldn't find it either. Spotify/grooveshark time, I guess.

decent uptempo Elton (fat synth lines, cowbell, hints at Jerry Lee Lewis-esque piano) with a relentless bassline cranked up in the mix. Lyric is Taupin's version of the Stones' "Hang Fire": guy reads the papers and gripes "Coal mines closed down...Japanese still killing whales...Lipstick boys all look like queens"

"Candy By the Pound"

http://youtu.be/3vOq9fpTnOw

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MHYPEePejb0/Sk3dH0W4_yI/AAAAAAAAAV0/eP-4HiIzvaU/s400/elton+john.jpg

this is a soul death in a song

holy hell

col, I disagree! This is the first number in ages in which the producer knows where (and whether) to use horns. The verse melody insinuated itself into my brain. What comes off gross is the synthesizer.

what happened? A 180 degree spin in 9 hrs?

btw, scored a nice-sounding Too Low For Zero LP for two bucks today (if ever in Northampton, MA, go to Turn It Up, folks). Didn't have the heart to buy Leather Jackets, which was slotted next to it.

Ice on Fire goes out with a weepie

"Shoot Down the Moon"

http://youtu.be/2_HMPXrDCr4

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/A2IlCn4A-CE/hqdefault.jpg

Not terrible just perfunctory. Taupin went through his pockets looking for scraps of cliches he could cobble together.

a steady downward arc in quality since Jump Up and Too Low. The next one is allegedly rock-bottom, Elton's least favorite of all his albums

"The Man Who Never Died"

http://youtu.be/F6q0kMx9xMA

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/04/15/article-1377346-0BA58B5C00000578-23_634x455.jpg

Pointless doodle. No lyrics. No melody either.

"Man" is allegedly another John Lennon tribute? Makes "Empty Garden" look like a Shelleyan ode

one more sorta-original B-side, his "rock 'n' roll" medley from Wembley, '84 (flip of "Cry to Heaven")

"Whole Lotta Shaking Goin' On/ I Saw Her Standing There/ Twist and Shout"

http://youtu.be/qMFgL6737mw

"ClassicTVMan1981X
2 years ago

1:00 - Best part of the song is the Yamaha GS1 synth by itself."

Are we ready?!

"Leather Jackets"

http://youtu.be/ickIxeLXyck

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/14/article-2173528-140F919F000005DC-173_634x611.jpg

from Wiki:

In 2006, John declared this his least favourite of all his albums: "Gus Dudgeon did his best but you can't work with a loony."[3] He's also been quoted as saying there were some records where he was "not together at all" and cited this album as an example. With its biker cover, he said it was "very butch but a total disaster. I was not a well budgie, I was married and it was just one bag of coke after another."[

In 2000, Gus Dudgeon said: "There was a chance he could polish himself off. He'd go out and do some coke and it'd be all over his mouth, his nose would be running and I'd go: 'Oh God, this is just awful"

Elton's version of "Rough Boys." man, he sounds pretty grim here (it's like a guide vocal at times)

Ryan White looks healthier. RIP.

One of those interchangable '80s mainstream rockers that filled albums by the thousands

"Hoop of Fire"

http://youtu.be/y25JP7J1VKU

https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/images/medium/Elton%20John_12_1.jpg

A decently sung ballad with typical '80s rhythm licks and typical Taupin banalities – man, this guy dreamed in catch phrases and ad slogans and hoped Elton could flesh them out emotionally.

yeah, Taupin in his mode of purveyor of mixed metaphors and 10-year-anniversary card shlock is a tough hurdle to clear, and Elton's not in good enough shape to do much more than make BT's lines scan and craft the song competently enough to be forgetful. Gus Dudgeon's reduced to throwing in castanets in the refrains just to give the ear something remotely novel to focus on.

I can only find a demo of the Cher collaboration (she wrote the lyrics).

"Don't Trust That Woman"

http://img2-2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/090217/cher-oscars_l.jpg

thoughts while listening to it on grooveshark: LP track sounds like a demo in the intro, so not much of an elevation from the Cher thing. Opening couplet: "she's a real ball-buster/don't trust her". Christ, steel drums in the chorus? to match Elton's slight patois ("shee's just a woo-mun"). Couldn't Cher have at least co-sung this turkey? Trebly guitar/synth/conga breakdown sounds like EJ may have heard Graceland a few times.

"Go It Alone"

http://youtu.be/8mILUXbbKts

http://por-img.cimcontent.net/api/assets/bin-200904/2aca259955c14155840739064bd4dbb1.jpg