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

Wouldn't have changed the Top 50 at all, but just noticed this in the final tally

Blues For My Baby And Me 2 49
Blues For Baby And Me 1 23

(xp) i think zevon was a fabulous singer, and his voice was really distinct!

(xp) that 1 23 was my last-second ballot!

Blues For My Baby And Me 2 49
Blues For Baby And Me 1 23

Oh phew! Glad it didn't change anything, but I thought I was keeping a close eye on things like that.

Okay, that explains it. I probably wasn't super eagle-eyed with the final ballot to come in.

he sang about the blues a lot. "blues for my baby and me." "i guess that's why they call it the blues." the "state of teenage blues" in "i think i'm going to kill myself." "this boy's too young to be singing the blues" in "goodbye yellow brick road." and of course "blue eyes."

billy's a born pop singer-songwriter who wanted to be a rock star. elton's a born rock singer-songwriter who wanted to be a pop star.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, August 22, 2013 7:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is taupin-level catchy nonsense of the highest order, i can't begin to decode it but i guess it's a nice soundbyte

Credit Bernie for that, I guess. Elton has said on more than one occasion that he's always been (and remains) an avid collector and listener of music, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a lot of blues music on his shelves.

His first band was Bluesology.

It's no Attila.

speaking of him, this poll had me thinking about the fact that Billy and Elton haven't toured in a while, in part because Elton has been salty and vocally criticizing Billy for not continuing to write songs and trying to add to his recorded legacy. meanwhile, this poll has zero post-River of Dreams songs in the top 50, and four of 'em in the 'worst' subpoll.

this is taupin-level catchy nonsense of the highest order,

kinda agree, EJ doesn't strike me as a born rock-n-roll guy (neither does Joel for that matter, altho his earlier work may belie this - I haven't listened to the non-Attila stuff)

tbf, I'm almost 100% certain nothing from River of Dreams would make a Billy Joel top 50 on ilm.

Billy Joel, EJ, and Bowie don't come to rock and roll naturally. Lump'em or leave'em.

haha wrong. "River of Dreams" would make my top ten.

only cuz in summer '93 the novelty of boomer-rock going Paul Simon over shufflebeat sounded like a novelty.

you're totally right that River of Dreams wouldn't rate, by no means was i implying otherwise. what i meant was that listeners have decided that both these guys' put their best writing days behind them a long time ago, whether they willingly gave up or not.

yeah there's probably a good degree of nonsense in what i wrote. but billy HAS always self-identified as a rock and roller, while elton has always leaned "pop." i can't, for example, imagine billy doing a duet with kiki dee, and i can't imagine him ever doing glam either.

(i am however, flattered, that anything i write might be considered taupin-level catchy nonsense!)

I'd forgotten what "The River of Dreams" actually sounded like until I played it on youtube just now. Yeah, that's a good song. Also, Joel still had his falsetto in the 90s, which is more than Elton could claim. Still, Elton's singing during his initial run is one of my favorite things.

"Grey Seal" instead of "Candle in the Wind" we hope

xpost

by the early 90s, joel couldn't hit the high notes in "an innocent man" and he wasn't even trying. he had a female backup singer take 'em.

ha!

Billy definitely seems to have less bite in his backing band, i will say that. if he'd had Elton's guys he might've rocked a little more convincingly.

which made "I Go To Extremes" so hilarious.

I Go To Extremes was mostly a victim of its own 1989'ness.

fantasizing right now about elton's band doing "a matter of trust."

maybe Joel meant he hangs out with Nuno and Gary

Re: Billy's Band, some of this may be Phil Ramone and the general sweet evening sheen of his peak-era records (which btw directly overlap Elton's evaporation, perhaps explaining why so many people and people's parents were fans of both). I love that LA gloss but it's a different thing than the crunchy texture of Elton's pop-rock albums. Joel's band sounds pretty great live on ''Songs In The Attic.''

Great poll, btw, really sorry to have been 12 hours out of sync with the discussion. Thanks JF.

(Would still give it to the EJ band btw - they're more fun and wayy more adventurous - just saying there may be other factors in play.)

Davey Johnstone has awful hair though. Always.

lol

but nigel olsson had fantastic hair.

so anyway when is the billy joel poll???

:D

Just checked my ballot, I think the only picks not to make it were ''Curtains,'' ''Lucy in the Sky,'' ''Hercules,'' and ''Grow Some Funk Of Your Own'' (noxious lyric and all - this shit just gets stuck in my head CONSTANTLY). I didn't have much hope for any of those, but ''Curtains'' was my #6 so I thought that might boost it into the lower rankings if it had a few other fans. Oh well. Couldn't be more pleased with the top of the charts... 1-3 were my list too, though I had ''Rocket Man'' at #1 for sheer craft. I don't disagree that ''Someone'' deserves it.

1 Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long Long Time)
2 Someone Saved My Life Tonight
3 Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
4 Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
5 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
6 Curtains
7 Daniel
8 High Flying Bird
9 Levon
10 Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
11 Hercules
12 Holiday Inn
13 Philadelphia Freedom
14 Elderberry Wine
15 Honky Cat
16 The Bitch Is Back
17 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
18 Grow Some Funk Of Your Own
19 I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun of Robert Ford)
20 I'm Still Standing

Would love to run Joel poll if it hasn't been called, although I think VG should get first dibs.

YES plz do it!! I'm still kinda fearful of poll-running. I signed up to do the Pearl Jam poll sometime in 2020, I need that much time to work up to taking on such a terrifying task

Tracks:
1. Rocket Man
2. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
3. Grey Seal
4. I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues
5. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
6. Philadelphia Freedom
7. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
8. The Ballad of Danny Bailey
9. Don't Go Breaking My Heart
10. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
11. I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself
12. Honky Cat
13. Blues For My Baby And Me
14. I Don't Want To Go On With You Like That
15. I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol
16. Madman Across The Water
17. Bennie And The Jets
18. Tiny Dancer
19. The Bitch Is Back
20. I Want Love

Most Hated:
1. Something About The Way You Look Tonight
2. Can You Feel The Love Tonight
3. Wrap Her Up

Wish "I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself" would've placed higher (although I don't think I've even heard it in over a decade).

I still have a lot of Elton listening to do, there's a lot of stuff in these results that I'm still not at all familiar with. I'm so glad we did this, I've gotten a huge kick out of it!

Thanks so much Johnny Fever for stepping in and for rolling it out!

My pleasure! This last three-ish weeks of EJ listening has been fun for me too!

Thank you very much Johnny Fever for running this poll. There will always be a special place for it in the Tower of Babel of my heart.

Here is my ballot. Better Off Dead wuz robbed!

1. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
2. Tiny Dancer
3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
4. Grey Seal
5. Your Song
6. Your Sister Can't Twist But She Can Rock n Roll
7. The Ballad of Danny Bailey
8. Better Off Dead
9. Little Jeannie
10. I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
11. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
12. All the Girls Love Alice
13. Levon
14. Razor Face
15. Candle In The Wind
16. Rotten Peaches
17. Take Me To The Pilot
18. Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
19. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
20. Philadelphia Freedom

good job, here was mine

tracks
1. philadelphia freedom
2. funeral for a friend/love lies bleeding
3. someone saved my life tonight
4. take me to the pilot
5. all the girls love alice
6. street kids
7. madman across the water
8. amoreena
9. i’m still standing
10. saturday night’s alright for fighting
11. honky cat
12. the bitch is back
13. goodbye yellow brick road
14. tiny dancer
15. the last song
16. sacrifice
17. levon
18. sorry seems to be the hardest word
19. i don’t want to go on with you like that
20. rocket man

albums
1. tumbleweed connection
2. honky chateau
3. captain fantastic and the brown dirt cowboy
4. goodbye yellow brick road
5. madman across the water

5 worst
1. jamaica jerk-off
2. lucy in the sky with diamonds
3. johnny b. goode
4. island girl
5. your song

enjoyed shakey's counterpoint, not sure how many other artists such a thing would work for, you'd need a massively successful artist w/ no real critical consensus and ambiguity around just how good they actually are and why. i think of a similar artist like rod stewart (who seems to me a more obv counterpoint to elton though that might just be some linkage formed when they went in the rrhof the same year, plus knowing that elton apparently talked rod out of doing the pinball wizard role in tommy before swooping in and doing it himself) and there the obv great stuff is so obv great that a snarky dismissal of 'every picture tells a story' or whatever would just come off as challops while a snarky dismissal of the obv not great 'love touch' would just be a redundant. the bowie comparison shakey and few others bang on is apparent enough that it came up in the big rolling stone interview (where elton just rolls his eyes at bowie's cattiness and a seeming understanding of 'i am a massive popular artist and a total pro and when you're those things you will use whatever useful thing is at hand'; seems way more apparent in the aftermath that bowie envied elton's sales alot more than elton envied bowie's brilliance), the two big rockers that shakey specifically mentions as bowie rips - 'the bitch is back', 'saturday' - have always seemed to me to be fairly straightforward stones rips, albeit early 70s ergo glam; i can certainly hear bowie's 'let's spend the night together' or 'watch that man' as comparisons but still, same clade. i'll also agree w/ the couple of ppl who noted that they used to never hear 'the bitch is back' and now it's suddenly seemingly one of his most played on classic rock and oldies radio (and w/o the obv reason for the upturn that 'tiny dancer' has).

elsewhere: sincere regrets i didn't vote for 'i guess that's why they call it the blues', sincere annoyance 'street kids' didn't make the countdown or pick up a single other vote despite my campaigning for it even and posting that wonderful 'best vines of the 20th century' style video some dork made. which reminds me that the first time i heard 'funeral for a friend/love lies bleeding' was when my uncle gathered us all into his living room in front of his big screen tv to watch a video he had made (at a time when even camcorders were somewhat exotic, nevermind video editing etc) of him snow skiing soundtracked by it, w/ first just the landscape/daunting scenery/etc and then him bam! skiing when the 'funeral' finally kicks in w/ the tesh. i can still hear my dad approvingly nodding and saying 'ah - funeral for a friend' when the video started. my family will occasionally drag out this audio recording i made when i was six of me singing '9 to 5' and just lol it up but i really do need to mention 'at least i wasn't a GROWN MAN making everyone sit thru some eleven minute home movie of me snow skiing set to some elton john prog epic'.

This thread kinda baffles me. I think too many voters grew up in the '80s instead of the '70s, which might explain how a glass of lukewarm piss like "Little Jeanie" made the list. The last few big hits of the '70s--Island Girl, Grow Some Funk, Don't Go Breaking... (but not Sorry Seems to Be...)--showed that his long creative peak was starting to fade, but "Little Jeanie" was the moment he died and zombie Elton John took over.

And another thing... If an Elton-as-bottom-half-of-a-duet song like "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" could get a few votes, where the fuck is "Bad Blood"?!

80s hardly seems overrepresented to me and tbh i'm somewhat surprised and pleased at the number of album cuts that made it considering just how many damn hit singles you're talking about and how easily or even likely it would be for a person who only knew elton from the radio to whip up a ballot.

I basically agree about all the '80s hits, but just put that down to a generational thing: if Elton made a good single after about 1975, I'd lost all interest by then and simply wasn't going to hear it.

(I used to like "Bad Blood" when it was on the radio. I gave it a listen when somebody posted a YouTube link upthread and it didn't hold up for me.)

I don't think it's even necessarily generational. I just think there are some ilxors who gravitate towards that sound or at least don't reject it out of hand like some of us (ie me) tend to...that's why the voting thread is good because you can read some really considered thoughts about material you'd already dismissed, and then you find that maybe with new ears it's not as terrible sounding as you thought

this happened a little bit with me in the Stones thread as well. I blame Alfred and Ismael, basically :)

I liked gated drums and wimpy synths when they were cool, then when they weren't, and still do now that they're cool again. It's my comfort zone.

42 out of 50 tracks were from the 70s, so it's not like the later stuff dominated in any way.

Yeah, I thought it was cool that they made it to be honest, although I would never have placed any of them so high. But this is one of the most interesting polls I've followed specifically because he's usually regarded by rockists as a lightweight or a pop sideshow, therefore they haven't written a canon, therefore it really is up for grabs. Plenty of stuff in the 20s that you could as easily imagine as the top 5, and tons of album cuts. Great results.

Re: joel, i'm in, partly to make up for my foolish decision to give up 'classic rock canon.' Will put my quarter down when the dust settles on Order & Timing.