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

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.

Elton resembles mid-period Orson Welles on that single sleeve

I have a very dim memory of this one: the "in NEON" hook rang a bell when I heard it again. A vaguely-country "Candle in the Wind" sequel with a chorus that Elton has to sell a bit too hard. As w/ "Passengers," it's odd that this got the single nod when EJ had the title track as an option

some quality parentheses going on.

"Burning Bridges"

http://youtu.be/_o9M9EW-aRk

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_wgXA9ZnjHg/0.jpg

Another absurd Taupin metaphor (maybe he listened to Talking Heads' "Love --> Building on Fire") but in the service of a good ballad. I'm thinking that the erosion of Elton's high end has made him a better balladeer -- if the material is sturdy.

agreed that his voice is in a nice place here. the arrangement is very captain fantastic (something about the keyboard sounds and the backing vocals, especially). but the melody falls just a hair short, and the joylessness on display here is part of what had me begging for more "passengers" a couple days ago.

yeah a bit of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" in the melody/arrangement. Even by Taupin standards the lyric is ridiculous. You get the sense EJ took on Taupin's most batshit lines like they were Saturday-level NY Times crossword puzzles. & he almost solves it here! but all those clunky "ing" rhymes in the chorus take him down.

"Did He Shoot Her?"

http://youtu.be/CiAgM8VgSFM

http://cloud.lomography.com/576/406/75/f1af89f557af9ca53a9ab28361acc3d9d36378.jpg

poor Renata

so what the hell is this thing?

he shot her with a barrage of tortured metaphors. and she used to be my girl, so now i will do the same to him. also, "it's the 20th century now."

as always, we will forgive bernie when elton figures out that saturday crossword that his lyrics pose (nice way to put it, col). not that he needs our forgiveness; elton has the power to actually make his lyrics be good. elton, unfortunately, does not come close to solving the puzzle here.

poor Renata indeed. Maybe one day there'll be a Todd Haynes film inspired by her

this is a bit of car wreck---Elton seems to be throwing out everything he can think of and nothing really works. Is there sitar in this thing? Surprised there isn't a vuvuzela solo by the end of it

love to imagine Taupin heard Richard & Linda Thompson's "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" and was inspired to write this.

Tomorrow: the classic.

So Breaking Hearts is a notch below TLFZ. Bashing out in two weeks in early '84 isn't the same as bashing it out in two weeks in early '73.

yeah, TLFZ had more unity (all Elton albums have a hodgepodge of styles---his LPs are variety shows in which he plays all the roles---but there's more of a "feel" to TLFZ). Breaking Hearts is even more all over the place than usual, though its sequencing deploys the top-rank songs well by spacing them out.

i think the end of the "revival" is nigh: next album could be a tough one.

turn 'em on:

"Sad Songs (Say So Much)"

http://youtu.be/X23v5_K7cXk

http://burningthegrounddjpault.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/a-front12.jpg

Whenever "Sad Songs" came on the transistor radio that we listened to on school bus trips, this one kid would wait until the line "and it's times like these when we all need to hear the radio" and yell "Not this time!" & flick off the radio with a grand flourish of the wrist.

As this was fairly witty for 6th grade, it got some big laughs. Then he kept doing it seemingly every time "Sad Songs" came on during summer '84 and he soon became profoundly irritating, as you have to wait quite a while for that line (it's halfway through the first verse) & by that point you're committed to the song or you're (at least my case) just bracing for him to do his schtick.

this was a valuable lesson on how quickly an inspired bit can rot into sheer irritation. I hope it's served me well over the years.

Funnily enough, this one has disappeared from local easy listening radio, after years as an evergreen, therefore it sounds fresh now. I love the harmonies (AHHHHHHH). Another engaged EJ vocal with odd points of emphasis ("REACH into your ROOM WO-OH-OH-OHHH!), compensating for a tinny keyboard sound.

Not a fan of this one. The song is a bit Drifters (70s edition), with maybe a touch of Steve Winwood in there as well. A blueprint for much of the mediocrity to come from Elton.

top twenty Elton this one.

So after a couple of b-sides we explore the majesty of Ice on Fire.

in which the singles could be the worst things on the album (but maybe not)

"sad songs" is yet another one that sounds ripe for a nashville cover. never particularly loved it, and i still think of sasson jeans when i hear it (one of the few ads i can think of that tangibly damaged a song for me). but it's well constructed and produced and catchy, and it's easy to see why it was a hit. the one thing that irks me after hearing it anew: the "sad songs they say..." bridge, about three minutes in, goes nowhere and sounds like really obvious padding.