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

iirc Marcello made a good argument that if you axe the songs between "Grey Seal" & "Your Sister Can't Dance" on Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd, you've got a pretty flawless album

that's a lot of nixing to get to your flawless album.

also, wait, is he nixing "all the girls love alice"???

yeah, guess so! (i wouldn't agree: "Seen this Movie Too" is also a keeper for me. But "jamaica jerk off" is so rancid a song that it derails the LP's flow and it takes a while to get back into it

"Saint"

http://youtu.be/3ngLTUHp-XE

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/L05ZBxN9frA/0.jpg

the opening synths brought up Fox "suite" memories, so when it up-shifted to a thudding power-ballad chorus, I wasn't sure if it was an improvement. Feels like there's a better song in here somewhere---it's diffuse & overlong

now see this is my pick for TLFZ's worst.

"One More Arrow"

http://youtu.be/EOWUXppac2I

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/cms/binary/5813216.jpg?size=620x400s

a weepie (and arguably a gay song to counter the desperately-hetero "Kiss the Bride"), w/ EJ singing in a falsetto that's almost out of his vocal range.

Don't think Too Low quite recovered from the body blow that was "Kiss the Bride"---2nd side is a bit flabby---but the run of "Cold as Christmas" to "Crystal" would make a hell of an EP. Curious to see if Elton continues the streak with the next one (but there's like 22 B-sides to get through first)

on "One More Arrow" he's trying to remember something he's forgotten, which could only have come after "Kiss the Bride."

Zero B-side binge:

"I Guess Why they Call it the Blues" B-side:

"Choc Ice Goes Mental": http://youtu.be/V_88MyTrw_o

US single had "the Retreat," which we covered already, right?

"I'm Still Standing" B-side:

"Earn While You Learn": http://youtu.be/bP87fmu8_o0

"Kiss the Bride" b-side:

"Dreamboat": http://youtu.be/aqs4qfBJC6I

the reason there's no notorious Elton bootlegs or "lost songs" is that he seems to have put out everything he made in the studio at some point. "Dreamboat" hails from A Single Man

"Earn While You Learn," which is not bad, is an Elton maxim that Taupin never followed.

Insane -- I can't find a studio version of "Restless"! Yet fans have uploaded 620 live versions; he performed it a lot during this period, I guess.

anyway this sounds closest to the album version

"Restless"

http://youtu.be/52DgMEINazc

http://static.musictoday.com/store/bands/1940/product_medium/MUDD181.JPG

I can hear coke beginning to take its toll on his vocal. The enthusiasm substitutes for a blustery arrangement. Still, a better "Kiss the Bride."

yeah, studio version is v. close to that link. Agree his voice is starting to show some signs of wear, but the song's capable enough to fill the "Elderberry Wine"/"Saturday Night's All Right" slot on the album. With Geffen realizing Elton was the only one of his big signings to actually keep getting hits, there's pressure for a quick follow-up, so EJ, Chris Thomas and the rest grind out Breaking Hearts in a couple of weeks. I'm curious how ragged it sounds now.

Listened on Spotify to the album version. Vocal suits the song, I think. He seems to be going for a Stones vibe here.

"Slow Down Georgie" also looks impossible to find. Breaking Hearts: grievously un-YouTubed

"Who Wears These Shoes?"

http://youtu.be/PFonOVlhBWI

http://www.rock-shot.com/action/John-Elton_1984_1.jpg

Second single. More sexist drivel, and he still sounds hoarse, but the hook isn't bad. I don't remember hearing this at the time.

I do remember this one: it got some minor airplay. the guitar hook's okay but the chorus starts to become punishing around the 3-minute mark. Video is a horror (first Elton toupee appearance?)

The voice problems might be the polyps he eventually removed in '86.

Not even as good as Into the Old Man's Shoes, which I always get this one confused with. Best Elton shoe fetish song is probably Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes.

(Slow Down Georgie didn't do much for me either. Things do improve shortly though.)

"Breaking Hearts (Ain't What It Used to Be)"

http://youtu.be/4KjrgeiJlcM

http://s1.jrnl.ie/media/2012/05/PA-79880241.jpg

Always liked this one: it sounds like a refugee from Elton John sequenced after "Who Wears These Shoes." The self-pitying roue lyric works, EJ's push into falsetto in the chorus a nice touch. The lack of a bridge or solo or something to break up the run of verses/choruses does give it an overpacked feel---the song needs a bit more room to breathe.

why wasn't this tune a single instead of "Passengers"?

"Li'l Frigerator

http://youtu.be/YYt9q9F5YZo

http://cbswcbsfm.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/elton-john.jpg?w=594

or: Elton's "She's So Cold."

here's to Elton for making a halfway-listenable chorus out of Taupin's "lil' 'frigerator..get away from my soul!" points off for ersatz Chuck Berry solo and central casting '80s saxophone

I don't mind it. B-side material though.

brace yourself for tomorrow. possible all-time low of this project

too low for zero, let alone the li'l frigerator

Too lowdown bad refrigerator

"Passengers"

http://youtu.be/jH-TF0BZy44

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d_rwVsCaNHA/TailAKKnA2I/AAAAAAAAKz0/p9-KjDAhYm4/s1600/eltonjohn17.jpg

why?

Unusual for this period, a much bigger hit in England (top five).

Why?

this charted higher than every Prince single issued in Britain 1984-1989

this is barely a song. It's like some drunken bus singalong routine that somehow wound up being one of EJ's biggest hits of the mid80s

It's great, you menks. OK, it sounds like Men At Work (and even they might have thought twice about putting this on one of their albums) but as vaguely "ethnic" new wave pop goes, we had to put up with much worse in the early 80s.

Actually, I must have heard it dozens of times on the radio before I realised it was Elton.

I've read praise for this song occasionally 'round here.

At last! One of my most hated songs ever. Even as a 10-year-old listening to the radio I was like, "What IS this shit?"

it has something to do with apartheid and things

It certainly has the power to terrorise a government into changing its ways.

this was a hit? i have absolutely no recollection of this existing. it's not terrible at all. it might even be good. it sounds like a piece of paul mccartney schlock that could have wound up on the white album as easily as it could have wound up on pipes of peace, and no matter what decade it was you'd ask yourself why is paul mccartney doing this, but then you'd wake up one day and rhe song would suddenly pop into your head, separated from all context, and you'd think to yourself, "wow, this is pretty damn catchy. he was pretty good at that,"

and now that i've let the album keep playing in the background and i'm hearing the proper singer-songwriter elton john stuff that follows, i'm kind of wishing for more like it.

i may wake up tomorrow and feel differently, though.

also, as vaguely ethnic pop goes, i'll take this over "ob-la-di ob-la-da," "island girl" or anything i can remember off the top of my head from "the lion king," which admittedly is not much, but still.

it sounds like a piece of paul mccartney schlock that could have wound up on the white album as easily as it could have wound up on pipes of peace,

yeah, it's a bit like if McCartney had hit #5 with "Temporary Secretary."

more like "Waterfalls"

or "mull of kintyre."

"In Neon"

http://youtu.be/Pe_4rZwegLc

http://eil.com/Gallery/298530b.jpg

A single in America. Better than "Passengers" -- barely.