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

"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.