Album Review: Elton John – Elton John

 

Elton John – Elton John

November 25, 2018

ALBUM REVIEW

OVERALL (OUT OF 10): 10

I’m a pretty big nerd, and like most nerds I think The Lord of the Rings trilogy are the greatest movies ever made, bar none. No other movies have ever pulled off such grandeur, majesty, and emotional heft, and this in spite of an incredible amount of ridiculous fantasy nonsense inherent in the story itself – elves, dwarves, wizards, bad poetry, and all. Somehow it worked anyway. And yet, I can see within those movies the potential for something utterly disasterous – the grandeur borders on pretention without quite crossing over at times, and the stately, majestic lines are just a stray sentence away from unbearable pomposity. The movies work, but you can see the potential for them going horribly wrong if the stars hadn’t been aligned just right. And that potential for awfulness was tragically fulfilled with the Hobbit trilogy, which aspired to the same epic heights as The Lord of the Rings and fell miserably short, with too little story spread across too many films, with too many unnecessary and annoying characters, and with an elf/dwarf love triangle I still can’t believe anyone thought was a good idea. The seeds for the failure of the Hobbit were planted in the previous, far superior trilogy. I get kind of the same feeling from listening to the Elton John album – it works, but you could see how things could go horribly wrong in the future, which of course they did.

Elton John’s 1970 album Elton John is at once both a triumph and a tragedy. It is a triumph because most of the songs are fantastic, Elton was never in finer voice, the arrangements are phenomenal, the songs are beautifully crafted, consistently resonant, and frequently moving – and never again would an Elton John album have so many songs that were so relatable. It was nominated for Album of the Year, and in my estimation deserved to win over Simon and Garfunkle’s overrated Bridge Over Troubled Water, which took the Grammy that year.  No album with “Cecilia” on it should ever win Album of the Year.  But Elton John is also a tragedy because it clearly lays out two paths for Bernie Taupin to take as a lyricist, and he chose the wrong one.

The Elton John/Bernie Taupin songwriting partnership was unstoppable for most of the 1970s, a behemoth that mowed down any songs standing between it and the #1 spot on the charts. But its success wasn’t due to Taupin’s lyrics – it was in spite of them, and there is no greater testament to Elton’s prodigious skill and songwriting talent than the fact that he was able to make so many great songs out of such awful lyrics. Elton was on such a hot streak in the first half of the 70s that almost anyone could have given him almost any lyrics and he could have spun glam rock gold out of them. I bet he could even have made great songs out of Kiss lyrics (heaven knows Kiss never could). Bernie was no lyrical genius – he was just in the right place at the right time.

But Elton John makes it absolutely clear that it didn’t have to be that way, and gives us a glimpse of an alternate historical timeline where Taupin carefully cultivates the lyrical talent he was given, writing lyrics that are grounded in the real world and everyday experiences, and eschewing the abstract, obtuse, and bizarre type of lyrics that unfortunately became his stock in trade. I wish I could admire his attempt to avoid mundane, clichéd lyrics, because I hate those more than anyone. But in an attempt to be different and take the road less travelled, he became an inscrutable, opaque lyricist who often didn’t bother with meaning or sense. Robert Frost may have celebrated the road less travelled, but that road doesn’t always lead somewhere worthwhile. Sometimes only a few people have travelled a road because it really isn’t worth travelling.

“Solar Prestige a Gammon” from Caribou is generally seen as the nadir of Bernie Taupin’s lyric writing career, but it was merely one of a gazillion examples of bad Taupin lyrics that didn’t make any sense. The only difference with “Solar” was the words themselves were gibberish, versus his typical brand of gibberish with phrases that are gibberish but containing individual words that might have held meaning had they been used properly. After the Elton John album, coherent Taupin lyrics became few and far between, and somehow his mega-talented partner managed to slap lipstick on pigs and turn them into Miss Universes.

The Elton John album can be easily divided into two sets of songs – songs with lyrics that make sense and have meaning, and songs that don’t. I’d stake my life that if 50 random listeners were asked to sort the songs on Elton John into these two categories, more than 95% of the time they would all sort them the same way. “Your Song” falls into the former category – part of what made this one of Elton’s biggest songs were those exquisite lines “You can tell everybody this is your song…I hope you don’t mind that I put down in word/How wonderful life is, now you’re in the world”. Who wouldn’t like a lyric like that? What a nice thought – I wrote this song for you, hope you don’t mind, but you just make my world so wonderful I can’t help it. Just what every woman wants to hear. And most men, even if they don’t want to admit it for fear of looking like sissies. It’s so relatable, it helps you ignore that atrociousness of some of the other lyrics in the song: “If I was a sculptor, but, but then again, no/Or a man who makes potions on a traveling show” – these two lines go nowhere, and it isn’t clear what they are trying to express. And what is romantic about forgetting what color eyes your lover has? Makes you seem kind of inattentive, maybe negligent, maybe even pervy (what, you’re so busy looking at other parts of me you’ve never bothered to see what color my eyes are? Ew!). In some ways this sets the template for all John/Taupin hit songs to follow – incompetently penned verses with a chorus that succesfully diverts your attention. Elton had an excellent nose for finding a line that people could relate to in a song and making it obscure the crappy lines no one would like.  But overall, the lyrics of “Your Song” do mean something, however ill-begotten some of them are.

“I Need You to Turn To” not only has lyrics that make sense, I consider it the best Elton John song ever, although I think I prefer the version on Live in Australia.  It’s understandable, relatable, and this time even has decent lyrics in the verses. The opening harpsichord is enchanting, the string arrangement on this one is outstanding, and the cello after the first chorus is so effective – Paul Buckmaster’s orchestrations on the early Elton John albums are all wonderful, and this is one of the best. Interesting story, Elton initially approached George Martin to produce the album, but Martin also wanted to do the orchestrations if he produced the album, and Elton liked Buckmaster’s work so much that he took the unprecedented step of turning the legendary George Martin down, so instead the album was produced by Gus Dudgeon.  Absolutely the correct choice, Paul Buckmaster deserves a great deal of credit for the success of Elton’s songs from the early 70s. This song is the perfect example of Buckmaster’s skill as an arranger, just a beautiful, beautiful song.

I’m not sure why “First Episode at Hienton” isn’t more highly regarded, it is such a lovely song, and a rare example of Taupin lyrics that tell a coherent story, a story of childhood sweethearts who grow up together then grow apart. The rest of the lyrics are so good I am willing to forgive the atrocious line about Valerie’s thighs being the cushions for their love. Ick. But the rest of the song is great, and for some reason the Moog doesn’t seem out of place, it fits the haunted mood of the song perfectly, even though it probably shouldn’t. I can think of no better depiction of the loss of outgrown childhood innocence, other than perhaps “Caroline, No”. The narrator looks back with longing at lost young love, but also seems to recognize that it really couldn’t have worked out any other way:

The songs still are sung
It was fun to be young
But please, don’t be sad where ‘ere you are
I am who I am
You are who you are
Now Valerie’s a woman…

Taupin does such a masterful job of painting a picture of life inevitably passing young lovers by, and time inexorably pulling them apart.  I really love this song. And I hate it, because it shows me what Taupin was capable of with his lyrics, and what he could have been in the years to come. As much as I like the Elton John songs of the early 70s, this song shows me how much better they could have been. What a shame.

“Sixty Years On” is more or less understandable lyrically, but with the harp and strings and marvelous melody, I’d have loved the song anyway. And if old age is as empty for me as it is for the narrator of this song, well, I’ve no wish to be living sixty years on either. While I prefer the version on Live in Australia, I have to say the falsetto vocal from Elton after the first chorus gives me chills.

Perhaps the most moving song – on an album with an inordinately high number of moving songs – is “The Greatest Discovery”. The lyrics in this one are superb:

Peering out of tiny eyes
The grubby hands that gripped the rail
Wiped the window clean of frost
As the morning air laid on the latch…

His puzzled head tipped to one side
Amazement swims in those bright green eyes
Glancing down upon this thing
That make strange sounds, strange sounds that sing…

And all you ever learned from them
Until you grew much older
Did not compare with when they said
This is your brand new brother

Yeah, this one gives me the feels. Why couldn’t Taupin have gone on to give us fifty years of lyrics like this? The initial cello solo is played by Paul Buckmaster, who in addition to being a genius arranger apparently was a cello virtuoso as well.  It is simply beautiful.

And there’s “The Cage” – the lyrics make sense, it’s a got a groovy funk, I like it. Love Elton’s falsetto on this song too. He has learned over the years to sound great with his reduced vocal range, but I have to say, I miss those falsettos from the Elton of the early 70s.

So those are the songs that more or less make sense, that cover themes that resonate with people, that the average listener can connect to. These songs chart out a future course for young Mr. Taupin and his supremely talented partner that holds the potential for making them the second greatest songwriting partnership of all time (sorry, nobody beats Lennon/McCartney). But alas, this isn’t the path he chose, and the other songs on the album augur the future for our then-young friends. “The King Must Die” is just a jumble of lines that seem to have something to do with royal plots and courtiers, although “And I’m so afraid your courtiers/Cannot be called best friends” isn’t a bad line. This could have been a good song with some focused lyrics and maybe something resembling a narrative, but Taupin thinks he can just toss out a few tangentially related images and that will suffice. There’s a lyrical laziness to the song that represents Taupins go-to approach for the rest of the decade fairly well. There’s potential there, and Elton manages to create a memorable chorus, but’s it’s not the great song it could be.

The same goes for “Take me to the Pilot” – the chorus is catchy, but what the hell is this song even about? “Take me to the pilot of your soul”??? Even its writers are clueless about it, Elton once said of the song “I don’t think either of us knows what that one’s about”. Again, we have a nonsensical song that Elton manages to make palatable by giving the chorus a major melody injection, but the song really doesn’t go anywhere or communicate anything. Do I like it? It’s OK I guess, but there are so many other songs on the album that actually say something, I have a hard time getting very excited about this one. And don’t even get me started on “No Shoe Strings on Louise”, which makes zero sense and and is delivered in a cloying country Western drawl. That one should have been left on the cutting room floor.

The Elton John album pulls hard in two directions lyrically, and I have trouble not seeing the album as a battle for the future direction of the Taupin/John partnership. Unfortunately, we know which side won out.   Taupin took the lazy, obtuse, unfocused route that was laid out on this album by “The King Must Die” and “Take Me to the Pilot”, and the rest is history. What a loss for the rest of the decade. Think about how much better the sterling melodies and haunting strings of the Madman Across the Water album might have been with lyrics that were truly worthy of it. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” has a chorus that gives me chills every time – imagine what the song would be like if the words made any sense. Elton was clever to emphasize the line “I think it’s gonna be a long, long time” in “Rocket Man” – with Taupin’s obscure lyrics, Elton always managed to pull out that one line that would connect with people and make sure it stood out, like he did with “Rocket Man”. Glad he didn’t try and use “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it’s cold as hell/And there’s no one there to raise them if you did”. Blech. Awful lines in a great song. And does anyone even have any idea what Elton sings after “Rocket Man” in the chorus? Does it matter? Again, he knew what to emphasize in the songs to make you forget Taupin’s awful lines in the rest of the song. That was part of Elton’s genius.

Elton John is easily Elton’s best album – here he stands at the crossroads with his lyricist, several excellent, relatable, coherent songs in hand, and the chance to choose a path that leads to many more just like them in the years to come. But by Tumbleweed Connection Taupin had instead taken a hard left onto the path to impenetrable, lazy lyrics that sometimes evoked images, and maybe with a line or two that pricked your interest, but almost never with lyrics that held together through a whole song. By Madman Across the Water he was too far gone to ever turn back, and I can like “Levon” while simultaneously wishing for something better than “And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus/Leave Levon far behind/Take a balloon and go sailing/While Levon, Levon slowly dies” in the lyrics.  I can adore “Tiny Dancer” while ignoring the “Jesus freaks out in the streets”. I can admire the melody and orchestration on “Madman Across the Water” and pretend I’m not hearing “We’ll come again next Thursday afternoon/The in-laws hope they’ll see you very soon”.  While I can still enjoy these songs, it doesn’t stop me from wishing they had the lyrics they deserve.

So, yeah, I’m heartbroken that on this album he had two paths in front of him, and instead of the one that led to more “I Need You To Turn To”s and “The Greatest Discovery”s, he chose the one that eventually led to “Solar Prestige a Gammon” and “We Built This City” – yep, you heard me right, Bernie Taupin is responsible for the Starship-recorded monstrosity that is widely regarded as the worst song ever recorded. Worse than “My Ding-a-Ling”, worse than “Sussudio”, worse than “Achy Breaky Heart” – just think about that. I’ll have to check, but I bet Taupin even has a credit for writing some of the overblown dialogue for The Hobbit trilogy.

 

“Don’t call my lyrics poetry. It’s an insult to real poets.” – Bernie Taupin

 

“Bernie, your humility does you credit – but you are right on the money.” – Brutally Honest Rock Album Reviews