Elton John Band • Page 2

Honky Chateau was my gateway into Elton thanks to @cshadows2887 and it was the perfect record to start the Elton catalog. I'm now 9 records into him and oddly enough I have yet to hear Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

 

I don't think I ever noticed how much of a country influence some of these songs have. Roy Rogers and Social Disease especially stick out.

 

Yeah for a guy from England he really did work in the country medium quite a bit. "Dixie Lily" on Caribou. "Texan Love Song" on Don't Shoot Me. Most of Tumbleweed Connection, really. I feel like the outside status really helps, because he never quite sounds like the genre and is so enthusiastic in his approach.

 

Bernie Taupin was frequently a really puzzling lyricist. He could be really obtuse, and sometimes just goofy and nonsensical, but "Roy Rogers" might just be his best work:

"Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems
There's nothing there at all
You just seem older than yesterday
And you're waiting for tomorrow to call

You draw to the curtains and one thing's for certain
You're cozy in your little room
The carpet's all paid for, God bless the TV
Let's go shoot a hole in the moon

Oh, and Roy Rogers is riding tonight
Returning to our silver screens
Comic book characters never grow old
Evergreen heroes whose stories were told
Oh the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the TV, shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight"

 

Just started Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. This is the first Elton record that I have listened to in full. The opener is fucking awesome.

 

Going through Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for the first time in awhile. Figure I'll post some thoughts as I go.

- I will never stop being impressed with the ambition of "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding". Elton very rarely played keyboards, but man, when he did he nailed it. Davey Johnstone is the MVP though. His guitar tone is just razor sharp.

- I've heard "Candle in the Wind" enough times that I though I knew it well. But really listening close today brought out just how exceptional the arrangement and production are. The bit of Spector-y reverb on the piano and drums meshes really well with that gorgeous acoustic guitar sound and those pealing Davey leads. The real standout factor is the backing vocal arrangement. His band did those with zero input from Elton and it was always that element that really took his songs to a different plane. He really lucked into something with Johnstone, Murray and Olsson.

- "Bennie and the Jets" really carries almost entirely on vocal personality. The attitude in his voice, the smoothness of his falsetto on "magazine", the forced falsetto during the jam-out at the end, etc. I never realized how much they committed to the "live" conceit after the crowd noise fades out though. The production is a cool facsimile of a live recording. And then adding the ever-so-slightly-off "crowd" clapping is inspired.

- Not much to say about "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" other than that is pretty much perfect and it nails feelings Elton and Bernie were rarely sincere enough to capture: loneliness and longing. And god, those harmony vocals again on the chorus.

- "Grey Seal" is massively underrated. He did this kind of epic, pulsing piano track a bunch in his career, but probably never better.

- "I've Seen That Movie, Too" and "Sweet Painted Lady" both suffer from coming after a lot of monster songs, but are excellent in their low-key way, too. Especially "Sweet Painted Lady" has this smooth fluidity that I love.

- "Danny Bailey" is a good example of Taupin's limitations. They ramp the sound/arrangement of their older story songs way up, but he's just not a good enough lyricist to match up. So many clumsy lines. But there's some ear candy to redeem it a bit.

- The lyrics are (intentionally) a bit skeezy, but good lord is "All The Girls Love Alice" fucking ferocious. Stomping, swinging and funky with some of Johnstone's dirtiest lead playing.

- I will always have a soft spot for "Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock and Roll)". It's like "Crocodile Rock" on amphetamines.

- "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" is the sound of a band at its peak, plain and simple.

- "Harmony" is a very sweet little song. It's kind of tucked away at the end, but it's so damn charming.

 

I thought the same about some of The Beatles' songs, but with what I'm hearing of Sir Elton so far, it's a much more common thread for him.

Also I never would've thought Elton John would be responsible for such a darkly humorous ode to teen angst as "I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself"

 

Hah YES. That song is amazing. The tap dance solo in the middle of it is just perfect somehow.

And to have it on an album with a song as sincere as "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters". Fuck I love that record

 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a lot to process. A lot of music there, and quite eclectic compared to the previous two

 

Recap of Elton listening this week:

- He really has a LOT of quality non-album material. I think I'll have to buy Rare Masters. His songs for the Friends soundtrack are excellent and he just has a lot of really fun songs that didn't make the cut. "Rock and Roll Madonna", "Bad Side of the Moon", "Sick City", "Cold Highway", "Screw You (Young Man's Blues)", "Whenever You're Ready (We'll Go Steady Again)", etc. I can see why they were cut, but I'm really glad they're out there to hear.

- Elton John I have an immense fondness for, but I think I may have overrated a touch before. I do love the fact that it's simple and he has no pretensions of stardom yet, which usually leads to arrangements where Paul Buckmaster really gets to shine. And "Sixty Years On" and "The King Is Dead" are what announced him as a major talent and two of his best songs hands down. The baroque thing mixed with the sweeping strings is a hello of a combination.

- Tumbleweed Connection is still, for my money, his second most complete top-to-bottom album. It lacks the huge knockouts (though "Burn Down the Mission", "Come Down in Time" and "Amoreena" are up there), but it's just so consistent all the way through and really ambitious in the unifying concept.

- I used to view Madman Across the Water as 5 amazing songs and then it falls off a cliff. And while Side 1 and "Indian Sunset" do tower over the rest of the record, I wasn't really being fair to side 2. "Holiday Inn" is actually a really nice song with some great mandolin layers. And "All the Nasties" has that really pretty choral-ish coda. But none of it can touch the just ENORMOUS sweep of those first 5 songs. Paul Buckmaster was just on another level there in terms of marrying this amazing sense of drama to already great songwriting.

- Honky Chateau is still his masterpiece.

- Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player is underrated. He's not reaching as high, so I get people knocking it off his peak albums, but for one it's an album he absolutely needed to make to do Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The very distinct genre exercises are a very clear blueprint. And some of them are so fun. "Texan Love Song" is a Southern satire so vicious, Warren Zevon would be jealous. And "Have Mercy on the Criminal" is catchy as fuck. The real gem for me has always been "High Flying Bird" though. One of his career-best and a hell of an album closer.

- Caribou is where you start to see a little exhaustion in the songwriting, but you'd never know from the sound. His band sound as good as they ever have. On career highlights like "The Bitch is Back" and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", it's just transcendently good pop music. And their groove as a band elevates sleeper favorites like "Pinky" and "Dixie Lily" to more than they would be otherwise. And even when the lyrics are vapid ("I've Seen the Saucers" and "You're So Static") or literal gibberish ("Solar Prestige a Gammon"), the playing and singing still make them a blast to listen to. It's borderline cruel how stupid Elton was firing the rhythm section after one more record.

- The Complete Thom Bell Sessions album/EP is one of the most underrated albums in music, in my opinion. He really gave Bell free reign to bring everything that's wonderful about Philly soul into his sound and really brought his songwriting back towards a peak. Just staple listening for anyone with even a remote interest in Elton OR in Philly soul.

- Not super familiar with his 80s stuff, so I gave Jump Up! a first spin, and it really gets a bum rap. If you like 80s pop and production trappings, it's pretty blissful. His melodies are catchier than they had been on his few records post-Captain Fantastic and the 80s touches never overwhelm the piano at the core of the songs. Even the silly lyrics about robots are more fun than stupid. I think his comeback on Too Low for Zero right after just keeps it overshadowed.

 

I keep forgetting to post here. I listened to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road the other day, and I liked it a lot more than I was expecting to. His band is just awesome, and the opener in particular was really cool.

 

What's the assessment of "Crocodile Rock"?

 

It's... So much fun?

 

Sooooo much better in the context of the record than hearing it every 6 seconds on classic rock radio

 

"Tiny Dancer" is a fantastic song when you actually listen to it. I may need to coach myself out of singing "Tony Danza"

A little ashamed that I've never really paid attention to it

 

I'm torn between chastising you for making fun of it and cheering you for appreciating its awesomeness.

It's part of that really awesome run at the beginning of Madman Across the Water where Paul Buckmaster's strings just soar

 

It's really just one of those songs I've heard so much that it's become background music for me. I've never really taken the time to appreciate it, despite its greatness

 

I've got a soft spot for that one. We did that as part of the show at the dinner theater I used to work at. Was always a fun one.

 

Two of the times I saw Butch Walker, he did a cover of "Tiny Dancer." Definitely one of my favorite covers I've seen live. Just a great song in general.

 

I can hit those falsettos in "laaaaaaaaaa la la la la la" so it's always been a blast for me to sing along to

 

Craig's Butch Walker anecdote reminded me:

Any notable Elton covers people can think of?

I've seen Brandi Carlile cover "Sixty Years On" amazingly. And Mandy Moore's cover of "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters" is fairly charming.

 

I like Keane's version of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" a fair amount. I feel like they've always drawn a ton of influence from Elton, especially on their last (hugely underrated) LP.

 

Hey, "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" is papa to Kanye's "Good Morning"

Umm, "Island Girl" is ... Yeah.

 

Butch Walker, secret Chorus poster?

 

Not sure it could be considered a cover since Elton makes an appearance, but I love hearing George Michael sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me".

Ben Folds covering "Tiny Dancer" is fantastic.

edit: Forgot about Sara Bareilles covering "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". Holy shit she slays it.