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

"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!!!

20. "Honky Cat" (1972) [254 points, 13 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly07GWoK9aY

tune

The one song I skip on HC!

What makes "Honky Cat" so funky? Is it a backbeat? I don't know musicology.

It's got a slowed down almost Dixieland Jazz tempo, which in and of itself isn't particularly funky, but Elton's playing and vocals have a little added swing.

19. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" w/ Kiki Dee (1976) [261 points, 12 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmRgFzg0jI

^^ prefer Muppets version

Muppets make most things better.

This and "Philadelphia Freedom" would be the first songs I'd look at if I were trying to understand Elton's mid-'70s megastar moment. I voted for both, but right at the bottom of my ballot. They're both songs I'd probably dislike 99 times out of 100. For reasons I'd have to think about, by him at that moment, they both work.

He seems to be having a lot more fun than her in that video. He practically yanks her over to the mic at the 40-second mark.

haha true

The video was one take & unscripted, not surprising it's a bit rough (my no.2 btw)

18. "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" (1976) [261 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3nScN89Klo

My own #1.

I can imagine Shakes arguing that it's bathetic but I disagree. His vocal is just right and breaks at the right moment.

btw one of the few songs for which Elton wrote lyrics:

This was featured in the 1977 film Slap Shot. Elton began writing this song in 1975 in Los Angeles. Normally Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics first then Elton added the music, but in this instance Elton wrote the melody and most of the words as well, with Bernie finishing them off. As Elton explained, "I was sitting there and out it came, 'What have I got to do to make you love me.'"

Taupin added in a Music Connection interview: "I don't think he was intending on writing a song, but we were sitting around an apartment in Los Angeles, and he was playing around on the piano and he came up with this melody line, and I said, 'Hey, that's really nice.' For some reason this lyrical line, 'Sorry seems to be the hardest word' ran through my head, and it fit perfectly with what he was playing. So I said, 'Don't do anything more to that, let me go write something,' so I wrote it out in a few minutes and we had the song.

"Honky Cat"
re: questions about the rhythm, this is clearly a New Orleans funk thing, borrowed from the Allen Toussaint/Prof Longhair/Dr, John school of piano-playing. fuck him for including that stupid faux chinese melody at the beginning and ending. this is another song where the weird mythologized Americana just reads cheap and wrong to me, like these guys are just playing dress-up but do not actually have any grasp of American psychology or history or anything. There's no nuance or shades of detail in the character, it's just a cardboard cutout. Musically Elton's piano here is a top notch imitation and his vocal is okay I guess.

"Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
This is the one Eltno tune my wife really likes and it's pretty good as disco/Philly soul pop fluff. hook is great and it bops along nicely, lots of cool little details in the vocal and string arrangements playing off each other. finding that I definitely prefer Elton in throwaway pop mode (still expecting my favorite 80s cut of his to show up) than in serious balladry mode, which has seriously made much of my listening in this thread feel interminable.

I have trouble thinking "Don't Go Breaking..." is a John-Taupin song even though they're hiding behind pseudonyms. It sounds like an outlier, which isn't quite true either if you think "Philadelphia Freedom."

Ah, that's amazing xp. Will never not be blown away by that sort of thing.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart is the epitome of that sort of easy virtuosity for me. No idea whether it actually is or not, but it sounds thrown together effortlessly, like all the melodies, parts and words are just being breezily played and sung for the first time. It's perfect.

"Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word"

kept waiting for some huge drums and gospel chorus to come in, relieved when that didn't happen. Agree w/Alfred that the vocal here is really good, the falsetto is expertly deployed. Accordian/vibraphone on the melody in the breaks is an odd sonic choice I don't really care for, would like this more if that wasn't there. but this is probably the best ballad track so far.

and I'll repeat: his duet with Ray Charles is poignant.

17. "Take Me To The Pilot" (1970) [286 points, 14 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSEX2yrZDks

We never got your take on #21, Shakey

Nobody at all commented on #21. Which is fair.

One of the interviews I watched with EJ recently contains a bit where he's asked about the lyrics of Take Me To The Pilot, and he admits it's just a bunch of phrases that sound good together and is completely meaningless.

Burn Down The Mission

the chords in this are a really odd thing to try and hang a melody on, sounds very forced to my ears. the double-time breakdowns before the last verse come out of nowhere and feel like they're lacking some kind of hook until the "burn it on down" bit comes in. Don't really buy the man-of-the-proletariat act in the lyrics. meh.

Take Me To The Pilot

this is terrible. melody and lyrics are so half-assed. it feels like there is literally nothing to this song, a bunch of empty gestures.

16. "The Bitch Is Back" (1974) [293 points, 15 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rig3tgyYiAM

I'm with Shakey: very little time for Elton ballads, particularly the theatrical ones. end of imperial phase in late seventies made him write less ponderous trifles, at least until the end of the 80s

Is the Unimpressed Skeptic going to be a poll staple now? Not that I mind--it's interesting to hear the other side. I'd like to sign up for Tom Waits and Roxy Music.

Take me to the Pilot is great, I find it very addicting even though it's almost completely meaningless

All of these songs are part of my childhood.

The Bitch Is Back

this is a song I've heard about but never actually heard, I think. does that horn line quote "Good Day Sunshine" or is it me? Lyrics are genuinely catty and funny for once. Hard for me to not to hear this as a third-rate Bowie knockoff though, and the melodic hook is not that great. This is another tune which makes me wonder how Elton was viewed in the context of glam - it seems like he was a little late to the game, and I've never really considered him part of the genre even though its themes and window-dressing are obviously tailor-made for him...? (see also: Rocket Man and Crocodile Rock. From my perspective he was prone to these rather baldfaced ripoffs of other people's tunes from a couple years previous).

I love Bitch Is Back -- Elton's delivery on 'stone cold sober as a matter of fact' is really infectious, one of my favorite songs to sing out loud driving around etc

makes me wonder how Elton was viewed in the context of glam - it seems like he was a little late to the game
There was a bit of retro-fitting by the GBP. It wasn't until "Saturday Night's..." in '73 that we realised - duh - yeah he's sort of glam too innit. That's the track that gets put on the glam rock comps.

I wonder if the skeptics are missing hearing these songs hours at a time on AM/FM radio? It's hard to judge the hookiness of "The Bitch is Back" on one listen. It sounds great on the radio!

15. "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters" (1972) [302 points, 12 votes, 2 first place votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOu0oc9aB4

yeah I don't remember hearing any of this stuff on the radio for some reason, apart from the couple I already noted. I dunno if I just ignored them and they just blew by me, or my parents were listening to different stations or what. (My parents were not really Elton John fans, I think my mom had one Greatest Hits comp from the early 80s and she never listened to it)

xp
Two first place votes?? Have at 'em, Shakey! ;-)

(Full confession: I used to like this, but it hasn't aged well.)

14. "Grey Seal" (1973) [306 points, 14 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsozyGR6Eo4

Happy that "Don't Go Breaking" made the top 20, i'd been worried it would be dismissed by too many to get that high. Disappointed that "Bitch" isn't a little higher, fantastic song.

Grey Seal's a standout, one of my favourite discoveries from this

"Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters"

I find his ballads easier to take without the schmaltz and bombast, so I'm thankful for what this song is not, at least. Lyrically again it uses reference points in an irritatingly shallow and clumsy way (surely they could have shoehorned in a reference to Broadway's "bright lights" while they're mining empty cliches...) I dunno, he seems to have tons of these kinds of songs in his catalog, it's not a style I can get into. there's no depth, no ambiguity, no challenge.

"Grey Seal" is a jam.

I didn't know "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" until after he played it at The Concert for New York.

"Grey Seal"

huh this gets downright proggy in spots. melody in the verses is pretty good, descending vocal melody in the chorus is catchy. kinda like the harmonies on this. I do like fiery wah-wah breaks so that gets points too. lyrics are ridiculous nonsense, as usual. this feels like an album opener (I'm guessing that it's not though?), seems like an effective energetic scene-setter for a rock-opera.