Bernie Taupin Is A Godawful Lyricist Whose Lyrics Sound Amazing Coming Out Of Elton John's Mouth — ILM ARTIST POLL #41: ELTON JOHN

agreed.

22. "Daniel" (1973) [219 points, 11 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f0TMfQNRk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf0KRkRn7_o

"High Flying Bird"
god its really hard for him to resist the easy bombast (gospel choirs! leaden tempos! repeat the chorus a million times and maybe it will seem catchy!) Vocal tag on the coda reminds me that at best Elton is just "serviceable" for me.

"My Father's Gun"
this is fucking garbage. again with the leaden tempo, the over-emotive vocal, the gospel choir and chord changes, the atrocious lyrics repeated ad nauseam. utter crap, and 6 minutes of it! last verse genuinely offensive imho.

"Crocodile Rock"
oh hey I know this song. this was a hit for a reason i.e., it's basic chord structure underpins a strong melodic hook. T. Rex and Gary Glitter did this nostalgia-for-8-years-ago thing better but whatever. I don't get the hate.

"Mellow"
Really starting to hear the limits of his compositional strengths in all these ballads, he relies on a lot of similar chord tricks for his turnarounds at the end of verses for ex. Boring (christ another nearly 6 minute song with the choruses repeated ad nauseam), and not really mellow either. Effected violin at the end is probably the most interesting sonic detail I've yet to hear in this poll.

"I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That"
ah, Elton's entry in the 80s-does-old-Motown/R&B with synths style. The melody is oddly monotonous. track has a certain generic bouncy energy I suppose. not anything I actively need to hear ever again.

"The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-1934)"
This stuff just doesn't work for me, these shitty character sketches. Again they have a sledgehammer obvious theatricality that's more Broadway than anything else, and they lack nuance or believability or even just the basic capability of being engaging. Utterly fails at conveying the ostensible point of the song (tragedy? amusing folk tale?) I don't get the point of this.

"All The Girls Love Alice"
1. Disappointed that this is not about Alice Cooper. 2. However, this is a character sketch that actually works. The arrangement has some grit and grind in it, it's dark and energetic, and then he gets to the breakdowns where everything drops out to put the sadness over. The end with all the synth noises is a different kind of bombast, one I can get with. Feel like this is him trying to be Lou Reed or something.

"Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy"
More garbage. Production is adequate, I credit (I assume) Gus Dudgeon for making this anything more than unlistenable.

"Harmony"
Uuuuughh yet ANOTHER lead-footed ballad/character sketch that makes no sense, has no hook, featuring swooping swings and backing vocals. At least it isn't 6 minutes long. what's up with the weird vocal affectation he does here? I guess the harmonies are okay.

"Tower Of Babel"
This is okay I guess. I do like his falsetto. Never heard Babel pronounced that way. This is yet another song where he does that thing with a descending chord change that passes through a minor seventh (I think?) before going all the way down and then back up (musicological terms failing me here), man he seems to do this a lot.

"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me"
oh hey I know this song. sorry, I've always hated it (altho George Michael's version is better). Maudlin, rambling, and the hook in the chorus is just not enough to hang a whole song around imho.

"Amoreena"
OMG ANOTHER ONE. how can you guys tolerate so much of this shit. couldn't make it all the way through this.

"Sacrifice"
This guy really had horrible, horrible taste in synth sounds in the 80s. worse than Stevie Wonder, worse than the Pet Shop Boys, worse than Starship. Lyrically this is ok I guess. Like, it at least makes sense.

worse than the Pet Shop Boys

ok this is straight-up trolling. Which guy had fantastic taste in synth sounds in the eighties -- Falco?

the decade(s)-later ubiquity of "Candle" and "Tiny Dancer" kinda makes me wonder what other relatively minor '70s songs might someday stumble into becoming cultural touchstones way after the fact

It takes an artist like Elton for this to be true though. Or maybe, more accurately, one with Elton's appeal. 'Serious' acts who get pored over on release aren't going to have much room for reassessment - there's only so much Bowie you can revive - but with Elton there's a lot of rediscovering to do. And the gold and dreck got treated largely the same on release.

I dunno, Shakes. I've had "Harmony and me/we're pretty company" stuck in my head for the last two hours.

xp I meant to mention this upthread, but "Stuck In The Middle" stumbled into a whole new life courtesy of Tarantino. I wasn't a huge 70s hit, was it?

it hit #6. "Son of a Preacher Man" from PF also went top top a few years earlier. I was too young to know whether they were adult contemp standbys.

*went top ten

21. "Burn Down The Mission" (1970) [244 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPTdSYTLA10

21 	Burn Down The Mission 	1 	9 	244
22 	Daniel 		11 	219
23 	Elderberry Wine 	1 	9 	214
24 	Candle In The Wind 		11 	201
25 	Sacrifice 		9 	183
26 	Amoreena 	1 	8 	173
27 	Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me 		7 	147
28 	Tower Of Babel 		6 	139
29 	Harmony 		5 	138
30 	Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy 		6 	131
31 	All The Girls Love Alice 		7 	129
32 	The Ballad Of Danny Bailey 		5 	124
33 	I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That 		7 	123
34 	Mellow 		7 	115
35 	Crocodile Rock 		5 	113
36 	My Father's Gun 		5 	111
37 	High Flying Bird 		4 	108
38 	I've Seen That Movie Too 		5 	95
39 	Razor Face 		4 	93
40 	I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun Of Robert Ford) 		5 	90
41 	The Last Song 		4 	89
42 	We All Fall In Love Sometimes 	1 	3 	87
43 	Where To Now St. Peter? 		4 	85
44 	Island Girl 		5 	84
45 	Are You Ready For Love? 		4 	83
45 	Holiday Inn 		4 	83
47 	Blue Eyes 		3 	83
48 	Border Song 		5 	82
49 	Too Low For Zero 		4 	81
50 	Little Jeannie 		4 	73

"Candle In The Wind"
Has one of his better hooks/refrains in the chorus but even still fuck this song forever and always.

"Elderberry Wine"
this is okay. agree it's very Macca. I prefer Elton's vocals double-tracked, I think. Wears out its welcome at 3 1/2 minutes so it's doing *something* wrong.

"Daniel"
Sluggish, flutes are godawful. Lyrically it's a bit better than the usual dreck, actually has some subtlety to it but eh doesn't really do anything for me.

ok this is straight-up trolling. Which guy had fantastic taste in synth sounds in the eighties

this has always been my major beef with the Boys! They are very clever songwriters and good with hooks, stories, characters but ugh the clammy drums and shitty presets really make it hard to stomach. there were plenty of great synth sounds in the 80s - Prince, Bryan Ferry, Eurythmics, I could go on and on

Some pretty major "TOO LOW" action goin' down.

"I've Seen That Movie Too" is more "psychedelic" than "ballad" IMO, and it was one of Axl's subtle Elton shoutouts on Use Your Illusion.

I didn't expect "Razor Face" to do that well, but it's still probably my favorite song from Madman.

Pretty majorly bummed that "Sacrifice" beat out both "All The Girls Love Alice" and "The Ballad of Danny Bailey."

loooooooool of course you would stan for Crocodile Rock after snarking everything else, Shakey. OF COURSE.

:)

I've been waylaid by stupid work stuff but I'll compose some thoughts in a little while. Needless to say this is a v interesting rollout so far!

Also I love Daniel and I don't care who knows it.

GYBR is such a bloated album that I rarely ever get to "Harmony" all the way at the end, and I'd honestly forgotten how good it is.

I never bothered looking into how much liberty Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson were given with arrangements, but they're one of my favorite rhythm sections of that era (circa GYBY) and a big part of the reason why I keep coming back to songs like "Danny Bailey" or "Elderberry Wine."

XP I actually don't think it's that bloated.

yeah I kinda dig it even though there's a few dud songs on it

It has lots of good songs. I just wish they weren't all in one place.

I've never been a fan of double/triple albums, though. Maybe I'm adhd.

when I finally got it a few years ago it felt a lot shorter by the time I skipped "Candle in the Wind," "Jamaica Jerk Off," and "This Song Has No Title."

jamaica jerk off is a DEFINITE skip. such a stupid song.

"Your Sister Can't Twist" is the major dud IMO.

I'd like it were it not for the title

I guess "Jamaica" is kinda corny-sounding in an "Obladi Oblada" kinda way. I enjoyed it as a little kid, before I knew what "jerk off" meant.

spicy sauce

This Song Has No Title is one of my GYBR favorites, btw. It's brief, cleverly melodic and just fun. idg the dislike.

Yeah I always dug it.

Too much to discuss in this last batch (not touching Shakey's posts)...generally my reaction with this poll is less ''too low!'' and more ''oh awesome, I can't believe that placed!'' Danny Bailey and Alice beating all these other songs sort of surprises me though; maybe they get a boost from being on one of the most familiar albums? I like 'em both, just wouldn't have seen 'em as top 24 material. Different strokes.

So much great detail, sonically, in some of these, esp. ''Captain Fantastic.'' They banged these things out fast but they didn't skimp on making the recording sound as good as possible. I could say a lot more about that song... obviously it's the perfect kickoff for the album's narrative and an introduction to our protagonists, but it also works, musically and lyrically, to really fuse together these two sides of EJ/BT's output: it's just as much the brown-dirt/tumbleweed Americana stuff as the post-psychedelic comic book fantasy glam stuff. Really comes together for the chorus - there's really excitement when Elton finally gets to crash these guys together, the promise that our next issue will feature amazing thrills, an underdog's comeback, the completion of an epic journey, and YOU will be there!

Voted for "This Song Has Not Title." Didn't vote for "Jamaica Jerk-Off" but I always find myself enjoying it when I listen to the album in sequence.

There are definitely parts where GYBR drags, but I always though that sticking the whole glammy rock batch of songs ("Your Sister Can't Twist," "Saturday Night..." etc) so late in the album gives it a necessary jolt that keeps it from really dragging. It is a rather impeccably sequenced album.

I voted for "Alice" and yeah maybe it's because GBYBR is the only EJ album that's ever stuck with me as more than the sum of its parts. I like how Elton's voice is a bit further back in the mix than the shakers and the riffing, makes him sound a bit more spidery, and that's reinforced on the chorus. Elton doesn't usually play the creep in his songs but I like him that way.

"I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That" is joining "Club At The End Of The Street" as one of those songs i must not have heard in 20 years that is sounding really good to me now, totally forgot it existed. could instantly picture video when it came on the Spotify playlist.

a pal who lurks on ILM said: "It looks like the beginning of 'A Different World.'"

Yeah, I thought the same thing last week when I caught the video while making my ballot.

Elton probably had those Dwayne Wayne glasses a decade earlier

when Elton worked with Kanye for "All Of The Lights" he was like 'oh, those shutter shades were cute...i had my eyewear R&D department design the original prototypes for those in '83, but i changed my mind and the whole project got shelved'

when Elton worked with Kanye for "All Of The Lights"

woah, did not realize this. Real shame he couldn't conjure up young glammy fame-magnet showman Elton, they'd make a great pair actually.

he played piano on it and was one of the dozen guest vocalists, although i've never been able to pick his incredibly distinctive voice out of that cluttered mix.

Fall Out Boy wielded their recent Elton cameo far more effectively.

Can't wait to see "Stan" make the countdown. We really should have done a separate "duets" bracket...

When I was sorta kinda defending "Jamaica Jerk Off" earlier I think I got it confused with "Grey Seal."

lool

"Jamaica Jerk Off" is a terrible song even when you know the events behind it (summary: EJ & co went to Jamaica to record, had a bad time, and left).

From GYBR I skip Jamaica Jerk Off, Candle In The Wind, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting and Your Sister Can Twist which leaves me with a pretty perfect thirteen track album.

I was just looking through my itunes to see which songs I had on there and noticed I actually never even imported Jamaica Jerk Off, the other three songs I had just unchecked. I obviously never wanted to risk hearing that song again, I'd erase it from the CD if I could.

haha, man, "Stan"...I didn't realize until looking at Elton's stuff on Spotify that that live version from the Grammys with Elton was released as a bonus track on Em's greatest hits record. he just sounds so goddamn awkward singing that chorus, ugh. still kinda does cool stuff playing piano over the song, though.

I think it would have been better to have Elton rewrite the melody from Em's words, a la Peer Gynt.. on the other hand we might've just gotten '03 Candle N Wind.

Goodbye Marshall M
Though I never
Knew you at all,
Could've had the grace to sign a cap
For my brother in the cold

Modeled on your lyrics
And they whispered in my brain
I liked that shit you did with Rawkus
I get a rush from sudden pain

And it seems to me,
I'll end my life
By driving off a bridge
Never knowing how to mail this
When my tape's at end
And I would have liked to know you
But you were just too good
To call or write a stalking fan
Your biggest one was Stan

Classic Onion:

LOS ANGELES–With the nation still buzzing over his Feb. 21 Grammy Awards duet with Elton John, Eminem released a single Tuesday inspired by the performance. Among the song's lyrics: "I was at the Grammys and Elton John gave me a hug / So I got out my pliers and ripped his little faggot dick off with a tug / Shoved it down the throats of Britney, then Christina A. / Probably gave both of the bitches AIDS." John praised the song as "brave" and "coming from a very pure place."

The top 20 is here! The top 20 is here!!!