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

http://02varvara.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/elton-john-e1269756386888.jpg
"Heh, you hear that, Bernie?"

Thanks to fact checking cuz for that pullquote in the title, and thanks for sending in your ballots! We got 32 in the end; enough to roll out a Top 50 and have somewhat meaningful side poll results. First up? Worst/Most-Hated Songs...

08. "Wrap Her Up" (1985) [20 points]

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

For some reason, it didn't count the # of votes when I was tabulating the side polls, so all I've got are points totals. Sorry.

terrible thread title

the joke's on you, buddy

"Wrap Her Up" is terrible but not really stand-out-terrible for EJ imo, more like run of the mill dreadful

07. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (1974) [23 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic2hlOwCif4

I hadn't heard this before. It's okay, but it's completely unnecessary when everyone is aware of the source material. It also brings up the problem of what Elton mines the Beatles for - he does it a lot from here up to about 1979, and it's always for the most saccharine bits. Needs a bit of Lennon sourness to set it off, which Elton doesn't do.

Ooh disagree - I think this song fits the expansive, slightly goofy, stadium rock that EJ was playing live by '74 like a glove. And Lennon is of course on this.

"Wrap Her Up" is terrible when you listen to it and watch the video.

Two gay guys pretend to each other they are not.

06. "Something About The Way You Look Tonight" (1997) [26 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B93Tir6l5FA

Elton even acknowledges this is from his worst album, though I'm not sure how he feels about the song itself.

I really like this! His strained vocal is quite uncharacteristic, and brings real feeling in a way that he often can't manage.

xp Lennon's on it? I forgot they were great pals. What does he do?

05. "Circle Of Life" (1994) [36 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3NEyQFxGc

"Wrap Her Up" is terrible but not really stand-out-terrible for EJ imo, more like run of the mill dreadful

omg rmde at Nancy Reagan inclusion

Lennon's on it? What does he do?
His credit is 'featuring the Reggae Guitars of Dr Winston O'Boogie'

NAAAAAAAANTS INGONYAAAAAAMAAAA BAGITHI BABAAA

TIE!

03. "Jamaica Jerk-Off" (1973) [39 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyGU-CJulTs

03. "Crocodile Rock" (1972) [39 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lilZb_9MMHQ

^ Muppet Show performance almost makes me like Crocodile Rock

crocodile rock is fantastic fuiud

I voted for "Jamaica Jerk-Off" but i think it stands out mostly because it's right after "Grey Seal"

tbh my hated ballot coulda been as long as my actual ballot

voted "Crocodile Rock" on my "real" ballot, don't get the hate

http://wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=37319&archive=63515

Haha, nice!

Oh, I didn't realise it was "Most hated" section, just thought you'd had only a few votes/consensus..

Shhh you're spoiling JF's big reveal!

02. "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" (1994) [81 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hcc1QvM2Q

TOO LOW

^^

Also, I had never heard "Wrap Her Up" or "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" until just now, but together they handily summarize what is so objectionable about Elton during both the 80s and the 90s.

This "Taupin" Best Show call-in is amazing. Thanks, schwantz!

It just gets more and more ridic.

01. "Candle In The Wind '97 (Goodbye England's Rose)" (1997) [87 points]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8gO0Z818j4

Also, I had never heard "Wrap Her Up" or "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" until just now

really? SATWYLT was inescapable for five years.

reign of terror

the #1! looooooooooool!!! (and OTM).

Never in doubt.

I assumed its success was based solely on sharing the disc with CITW '97, but somehow I escaped this one.

Sacrifice didn't make the top 5. I am disappoint :(

oh there's still time

wow, citw97 only just scraped home

I was expecting a points tally to rival its total sales

John publicly performed "Candle in the Wind 1997" only once, at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997.[12] He continues to sing the original version of the song at his concerts, but has repeatedly turned down requests to perform the revised version,[12] even for the memorial Concert for Diana in July 2007, having vowed never to perform it again unless asked by Diana's sons.[13]

He's not completely out of touch with good sense, at least.

Re: the Taupin radio skit linked above...the Mick Mars/Nick Rhodes/Pick Withers/Mick Box/Nick Lachey made me LOL so hard I woke my bf up.

*supergroup

Croc Rock rocks!

Favorite albums!

10. Elton John (1970) [21 points]

http://www.vinylsurrender.com/Graphics/AlbumCovers2/Elton%20John%20-%20Elton%20John.jpg

Oh, btw, the scoring on the side polls went like this: 1:16, 2:13, 3:10, 4:7, 5:4 for albums and 1:16, 2:13, 3:10 for most hated tracks.

Nick Hogan used to be in the band, but that was stupid.

I really like that first album. A lot.

Live in Australia, I learned, has a lot of songs from the first album.

for real though tattoo you's a special case since mick at least knew they were creatively tapped and virtually all of the material is stitched together from like the previous 8 years of writing and recording

the bitch is back', 'saturday' - have always seemed to me to be fairly straightforward stones rips

i think that's the first time the stones have been mentioned on this thread, which is weird, 'cause elton borrowed a lot from them. the southern americana of "no shoestrings on louise." the horns on "elderberry wine." and all that guitar stuff like "saturday," of course. but he was obviously listening to bowie too. and bowie was listening to the stones and borrowing from them too. they're both sponges.

"bad blood" is fantastic. i assumed there wasn't quite enough elton in it to merit a vote in this particular poll. bring on the sedaka poll.

"i miss the earth so much/i miss my wife" > "tell my wife i love her very much/she knows"

I used heard the former as a comma rather than the slash that's here..

like, "It's got so bad up here I actually miss my wife"

I hear it as a comma too, and used the slash only to be consistent with a previous post quoting the Bowie lyric.

I just liked the juxtaposition of those two statements, in that order. It puts me in the shoes of the titular character, flying alone for a long time in my spacecraft in a different galaxy, pondering which I would miss more, my spouse or just planet earth in general?

well, thesedays I don't think elton/bernie actually meant it that way

hmm, did not know this:

Solo albums[edit source]
1971 Taupin
1980 He Who Rides The Tiger
1987 Tribe

With Farm Dogs[edit source]
1996 Last Stand in Open Country
1998 Immigrant Sons

Well done, everyone. Top 2 spot on.

(Not keen on "Tiny Dancer" but maybe if it had been a hit over here in '71 (the UK was pretty much ignoring Elton circa Madman), I'd feel differently about it. As it is, I'd never heard it until Almost Famous.)

My ballot:
Songs

01. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
02. Ego
03. Are You Ready For Love?
04. Philadelphia Freedom
05. Honky Cat
06. Burn Down The Mission
07. Tonight
08. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
09. Sixty Years On
10. Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding

11. Rocket Man (I think it's going to be a long long time)
12. Nobody Wins
13. Grey Seal
14. I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)
15. Better Off Dead
16. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me
17. Passengers
18. Madman Across The Water
19. Take Me To The Pilot
20. Skyline Pigeon

LPs
1. 17-11-70
2. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
3. The Union [w/ Leon Russell] <-- placement is trolling but there is some good stuff on this, check it out
4. Honky Château
5. Greatest Hits, Volume II

1, 4 and 5 above are the first EJ records I bought, within days of each other, so nostalgia's playing a big part here. In retrospect, I should have found room for Blue Moves.

Worst songs
1. Candle In The Wind '97
2. Grow Some Funk Of Your Own
3. Circle of Life

Thanks to J Fever for running this, long overdue, poll.

"Nobody Wins "!

haha oh man I just saw the post where Shakey says it's "kind of a toss-up" whether Elton John or David Bowie is a better piano player

Yeah, A-plus to Shakey for making like two dozen posts in character as OG rockist strawman before anyone bothered to point it out. I do actually agree that some of the slower songs can be on the samey side, but the rest was just bonkers. I say this as someone who's had ''Ballad of a Well-Known Gun'' and ''My Father's Gun'' on alternating mental shuffle for the past eight hours, so I just can't take the criticism as far as ''oh yeah these songs have nothing at all to offer and are boring and forgettable.'' Dude knew a hook, and the arrangements/playing add so much detail and little micro-hooks and surprises. Yeah, they don't usually need to go past four minutes, but there's a lot more in those four minutes than you'd expect to find.

the chinese piano re: honky cat = pinnacle of shakey ITT

Note to self, when I have a computer in front of me rather than a phone, write out five-paragraph, line-by-line explanation of why ''Captain Fantastic'' is one of the greatest songs in Elton's catalog.

I'd be interested to read it, because that song means nothing to me.

Consulting my newly purchased book of Billboard Top Ten charts, I note that Captain Fantastic, after debuting at #1 and staying there for six weeks and returning for a seventh about six weeks later, fell out of the top ten at the end of September 1975. In November, Rock of the Westies debuted at #1: by any standards phenomenal productivity and sales figures. No wonder he burned out a year later.

I was going to be all "LOL u bought a book of Billboard charts?! hahah" ...and then I saw it was you. As you were. :)

Elton's new album The Diving Board is out today, lyrics by Bernie, production by T-Bone Burnett, stripped down rhythm section consisting of Jack Ashford of the Funk Brothers on drums and Raphael Saadiq (!) on bass. not amazing or anything but pretty enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UttbDHa1uSg

Was planning on giving it a spin soon.

Barry Walters gives EJ the icon treatment and rather well too:

http://www.emusic.com/music-news/icon/emusic-icon-elton-john/

Elton talks...lots of unexpected choices. Great comments.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/elton-john-my-life-in-20-songs-20131010?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

"Crocodile Rock"
Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, 1973

Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player was my first U.K. Number One album. It had "Daniel," which was pure pop, but there were also songs like "Elderberry Wine" and "Teacher I Need You." And of course it spawned "Crocodile Rock," which was the song that probably changed the critics' opinion of me. It was a really blatant homage to Speedy Gonzales and all the great Fifties and Sixties records that we used to love, like Danny and the Juniors' "At the Hop." My career wasn't about "Crocodile Rock" – it was just a one-off thing – but it became a huge hit record, and in the long run, it became a negative for me, because people said, "Oh, fucking 'Crocodile Rock.' " I'd never started off as a hit writer, and I didn't know what a hit was, and it's evidenced on my first four albums. Rolling Stone reviewed it and gave it two stars, and I said, "Oh, fuck off." It was a great fucking pop record. Shut the fuck up. - haha fair enough

''Speedy Gonzales''?

http://youtu.be/O4HT51a4VHY

haha wow that is really blatant

That is an awful, awful song. But wow re: the Elton connection.

i wish there was an audio version of this interview in which scarface recites some classic bernie taupin lyrics.

Oh, and Speedy Gonzales to Bruce Springsteen, also.

Finally digging into Blue Moves after ages of dismissing it based on the cover art and not knowing any of the songs, figured it would just be a wash of faceless dreary ballads. But actually there's some rockin' here, and some really cool arrangements and musical surprises. It's very very well-recorded, for sure. Still getting to know it so I can't call out any specific moments, but I kinda think it's at least better than Caribou as a listening experience, even though it's nearly twice as long, largely underwritten (so many instrumentals!) and lacks that album's two big hits (both true grab-you-by-the-ears standouts). I dunno, it just seems less stupid.

If the same material had just been worked on longer, filling out the instrumentals as memorable songs in themselves, who knows what might have been? It came out one year after Rock of the Westies, also an album with some problems; if he'd been on a 1990s release schedule, the best material from those two together could have yielded a platter at least as good as Honky Chateau or Don't Shoot Me.... Just need to do something about the sleeves...

I never enjoyed recording studios! I loved the process of writing, but I never enjoyed the process of being in the studio. I always felt like a caged lion

--bernie taupin

RFI: With search engine disabled, can't seem to find the thread the title quote is from

it was the elton john voting thread and it was my quote and i can't seem to find it either. but if i had a copy editor, it would've been shortened to "bernie taupin writes godawful lyrics that sound amazing coming out of elton john's mouth."

It might be on the voting thread, but he first time you said it was about a decade ago.

Found it: Elton John

Elton has many great, weird songs.

Hang the fuck on, did 'Song for Guy' not place!?

The worst Elton John mega single.

No room for Captain Fantastic.

^^^ baffling!

(i'd put it #1, is all)

I really like Crocodile Rock :(

My dad is a big Elton John fan and I loved that song when I was like 6. Ditto for the Lion King soundtrack songs, I grew up listening to those. I just can’t actively hate them. I don’t really listen to them anymore but I don’t think they are his worst. Candle in the Wind is really bad though, kudos on that one.

Boy, he sure had a lot of top forty singles, eh?

OTM about 'Your Song', I'm seriously fucking sick of hearing it at this stage.

elton on bernie:

He comes from the wilds of Lincolnshire, I come from the suburbs of London. He lives in Santa Barbara and he’s literally won competitions for roping cattle. I collect antique porcelain and the only way you’d get me on the back of a horse is at gunpoint. Neither of us can write if the other is in the room. But there’s a weird bond between us that I felt the minute I opened the envelope – I could just write music to his words straight away, without even thinking about it – and it’s lasted over 50 years.

("the envelope" referring to a guy at liberty records in london randomly handing elton an envelope full of bernie lyrics in 1967.)

what a great piece

had no interest in seeing this but if herself is on board then I’ll give it a gander

Taron Egerton and Alden Ehrenreich are the same guy, right?

i think so yes

r.i.p. Caribou, you deserved better

feeling this post today. not mentioned anywhere in this thread: the gorgeous "pinky." such a perfectly arranged/played/recorded chorus. i want to take a bubble bath in it. the lyrics are classic bernie, the chorus consisting of four lines that defy you to guess what they have to do with each other. but the last bit of the last verse is killing me right now: "oh it's ten below zero / and we're about / to abandon / our plans for the day." i wish i voted for it.

I thought I did mention it?!

hmm, maybe on the voting thread?

I thought of the Elton poll crew watching his highness shuffle around the stage tonight for the farewell

did anyone else tune in? his band is so good