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

I can't find "Take Me Back" so here's:

"Give Me the Love"

http://youtu.be/

http://www.rockpeaks.com/files/imagecache/body/eggs/j/John-Elton/057358-John-Elton-Ego-Central-Park-1980_0.jpg

Don't forget the two France Gall duets.
― Jeff W, Monday, 30 December 2013

"Conquer the Sun" (UK b-side)

http://youtu.be/Se1w-U-Uq30

How on earth can you conquer the sun with these tempos?

ok, recap:

"Take Me Back": Elton countrypolitan with his Tumbleweed Connection voice cropping up in the bridge like a smoker's cough, complete with that inescapable "Little Jeannie" electric piano and a Hollywood approximation of a fiddle solo.

"Give Me the Love": no, pay for it, you skunk.

Strange record, 21:33. Objectively it's not that much different from, say, Piano Player but the hit single's no "Daniel" (even if you hate "Daniel") and the filler's mainly overcooked goo. I think Single Man holds up a lot better than this.

"Conquer the Sun": big, booming, dull chorus: an organ transplant (that didn't take) to a diseased body.

"conquer the sun" verses remind me, in a totally not bad way, of first-album elton. choruses remind me of what it would be like if oasis were asked to write smarmy ballads for a "lion king" sequel in 2018.

the two B-sides of "Sartorial Eloquence":

"Cartier"

http://youtu.be/xqgOD99xqyQ

"White Man Danger!!!"

http://youtu.be/P3FzM8BENJQ

http://www.eltonjohnitaly.com/sartorial-spagna.jpg

The Clash - "White Man Danger-Cartier Commercial"

Strange record, 21:33. Objectively it's not that much different from, say, Piano Player but the hit single's no "Daniel" (even if you hate "Daniel") and the filler's mainly overcooked goo. I think Single Man holds up a lot better than this.

Yep. A Single Man is a notch worse than peak-period Elton but if "Part-Time Love" hadn't flopped no one would've noticed this fact, while 21 at 33 sounds like aesthetic decline and David Geffen-here-I-come.

alfred, should we do the 3 B-sides of "Dear God" in one go? then on to the lest-we-forget France Gall duets

Go for it!

"Tactics"

http://youtu.be/pkd-Xh8bNxY

man, the success of "Music Box Dancer" really galled EJ, no?

"Steal Away Child"

http://youtu.be/-VvT5_ZYGLw

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/eb951vy0LYA/hqdefault.jpg

My nose hairs fell out the second those synths at the 0:50 mark started.

It's "The Final Countdown" six years early!

"Love So Cold"

http://youtu.be/eV720KrCj4g

oh good, we haven't had a "Caribbean" Elton track in a while

christ, what sounds like the elec. piano from Supertramp's "Logical Song" turns up in that last one

oh cool: the electric piano mimics steel drums

"That's why they call 'em B-sides," my father, 1980, when I complained about Queen's "Don't Try Suicide" on the "Another One Bites the Dust" single

aujourd'hui, M. Elton avec la belle Mlle. Gall:

"Donner Pour Donner"

http://youtu.be/VvDsgrMP5eY

"Les Aveux"

http://youtu.be/_2hydKjtJGo

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4133/4831231479_a4b0168c0b_o.jpg

"Les Aveux" was originally a song called "Reach Out to Me" that Elton abandoned. Not sure if Michel Berger was involved at all in the writing before the lyrics got Frenchified, but it's kinda typical of the dross that he saddled his wife with - and thus killed her appeal for me almost stone dead from '75 onwards. The saxophone on this is credited to Low Price, which sums up the whole song neatly really. Mind you, a low price is also what I paid for the 7" when I found it in a second hand shop in Brussels :)

"Donner pour donner" is better. Taupin gets a co-writing credit on this one, in addition to Berger and Elton.

so now we head into The Fox...

"Breaking Down Barriers"

http://youtu.be/570vPBOQnSs

http://images.npg.org.uk/800_800/0/7/mw77407.jpg

The best or most Elton-like song I've heard to date, pointing the way to the polite rocking that would characterize his better eighties hits. Even the production is uncluttered.

yeah i can definitely hear the roots of better elton to come. solid arrangement, production, etc. songwriting still pro forma, though. ("pro forma" in this case meaning meh for elton but not bad for gary osborne!)

The Fox! Looking forward to this one, as I've heard utterly nothing off it. Agree with the consensus this seems like ground-clearing for the slight upsurge in quality mid-'80s. Pretty duff lyric, but there's been (and will be) worse

"Heart's in the Right Place"

http://youtu.be/t7zH7kfJ-k8

http://po4ep.s3.amazonaws.com/111/l/20930565.jpg

I mentioned a friend bought me this album last Xmas as a quasi-joke. This is one of those tracks I don't know what to do with. The guitar seems to have wondered in from a Pink Floyd session. He's got John Lennon filters on his voice. The drums are well miked though.

like a rewrite of Lennon's "It's So Hard" with a lead guitar that you want to unplug about 1:00 in. It's weird enough to make it more interesting than most of 21 at 33 though.

I think he did a video for every track! wonder if the starved-for-material 1981 MTV played this stuff. This one's a bit nightmarish, eh?(wonder if Elton had the inside scoop on Camilla Parker Bowles, as the actress is a bit of a lookalike)

*wondered = wandered

Produced by Chris Thomas btw, responsible for the clean mix and "modern" post-punk touches.

"Just Like Belgium"

http://youtu.be/TuYoXR3HLzQ

http://www.nicholasjdanton.supanet.com/Freddie%20and%20Elton.jpg

"Elton and Bernie had originally written "Belgium" for Rod Stewart, who turned it down, claiming the melody and lyrics were incompatible" from the Elton bio His Song

was a bit cruel of Taupin to saddle EJ with having to sing the clunky "Just like BELL-gium" over and over again

"But the red lights where the catfights make it just like Belgium"

waht

also, "the Brussels Museum" - can you be a bit more specific plz. Don't remember any steps outside of any of 'em for that matter.

I like the song anyway though.

the same year, Costello put out "Luxembourg." 1981 a big pop moment for the Benelux countries

"Nobody Wins"

http://youtu.be/qq-Wtv174M8

http://www.vinylvendors.com/Pictures/e/l/eltonjohn50861.jpg

Exactly.

The US single! This cover crawled to #21. I have no memory of this song. Anyone who says he heard it should call my lawyer.

"While driving through St. Tropez, Elton heard Janie Prevost's "Je Veux de la Tendresse" on a car radio. He was so overcome that he pulled to the side of the road to listen. He asked Gary Osbourne to write an English verse to Prevost's melody. Osbourne wrote about Elton's unloving relationship with his father."

i've never heard this thing, either. must have been pure payola to get it to #21

Osbourne wrote about Elton's unloving relationship with his father
Obviously wasn't much to say about that, given only about 2mins in to the song EJ is left singing "La la la la, la la la la"

Despite that, this is my favourite Elton track of the 80s. So there.

MR. DWIGHT: You're a putz!

REGGIE: LA LA LA LA LA LA LA *hums Europop melody played on treacly synth*

"just like belgium" sounds eerily like early '80s e street band, especially the bass and the piano. the de rigueur sax solo serves not as proof, but as confirmation.

imagine the keyboard part in "nobody wins" is a guitar, and you will now know exactly what u2 covering "i will survive" would have sounded like.

"Fascist Faces"

http://youtu.be/NZqCNfdRAnA

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_f3eMmq_ab0/0.jpg

"when I see your fascist faces/ I know I've had enough" you & me, brother

goosestepping incarnation of "Bennie & the Jets" piano line to start the track off with. Was this a response to The Wall?

The frivolity of this thing almost offends me. Osbourne or Taupin or whoever can't summon the energy or inspiration to invigorate an analogy that even strained Elvis Costello.

man you guys are real gluttons for punishment

stfu and get in here, baby

this whole thing is purgatorial for me and Alfred (& anyone else who's taken part). When it's over, we'll have shaved a few years off.

fun imaginative moment: David Geffen's face when he heard "Fascist Faces" for the first time.