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

wrapping up yet another one:

"The Fox"

http://youtu.be/216IkUaiGtw

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton%2BJohn%2B-%2BThe%2BFox%2B-%2BT-SHIRT-273012.jpg

B-sides next! We can bundle those too.

The title and conceit demand a less, er, enervated treatment.

from the EJ bio: "Geffen had asked Elton to think of a name for the album. The musician thought of the fox, an animal whose cunning seemed a symbol of the way he had conducted his own life...Elton asked Bernie to write lyrics for a song named after the crafty mammal, and Bernie obliged"

internal Geffen memo, summer '81: "Seriously, the fucking "Fox"? Well, maybe the Neil Young tapes will be better."

"Fools in Fashion" (b-side to "Nobody Wins")

http://youtu.be/dR5CbSWYGAQ

Elton attempting Boz Scaggs??

Also: bongos! that bass!

gotta go to the dentist now but so happy some "Fox" B-sides are awaiting me, post-novocaine

wow, this one's something. Yeah, what's with the bass? It's like elton did a scratch vocal while they were trying to mike the bass properly, then figured they'd keep it. Still, better than the symphonic mush-sequence of Side 2

the rest of the Fox-lets

"Can't Get Over Losing You"

http://youtu.be/p9PeRq2kfeM

&

"Tortured"

http://youtu.be/heGV7dw7ASo

http://images.45cat.com/elton-john-tortured-geffen.jpg

"Can't Get Over": contractually-required "country" song from the session

"Tortured": verse is lovely, promises a much; overstuffed chorus doesn't quite deliver

"Dear John"

http://youtu.be/X_0xeHahEZU

http://www.musicko.com/wp-content/uploads/Elton-John-Jump-Up-300x300.jpg

such a lol-eighties sleeve. Shoulder pads!

so we're at Jump Up!, the beginning of his commercial resurgence. Critical too. Christgau!

You say you don't care that it's his best album in seven years? I swear, you young people have no respect. This little guy was a giant, helped keep us sane back then, and though it's true he hasn't come up with a "Honky Cat" or "Bennie and the Jets" ("I Am Your Robot" might qualify if there were still AM radio), it's gratifying enough that after all these faithful years he's started to get good songs out of Gary Osborne (gunning for a Frank Sinatra cover on "Blue Eyes") as well as Bernie Taupin (who really shouldn't ever write about politics). B

For some reason I thought all the big '80s hits were on Too Low for Zero, and had written this one off as another dud. But no, the reconquest starts now!

A bit weird that the same album w/a big maudlin John Lennon tribute starts with a zippy piss-off song called "Dear John"

I'm halfway through the album and, yeah, the enthusiasm is obvious.

"Spiteful Child"

http://youtu.be/VjMDIGnS0cg

http://www.coverdude.com/covers/elton-john-jump-up-1982-inside-cover-55926.jpg

Another uncluttered production on an okay song. So far Jump Up! makes good on title.

Yeah, something seems to have woken up EJ here. Jeff Porcaro's drumming? A better grade of coke in '82? Album was recorded in Montserrat "with breaks for Elton's tennis matches in nearby Antigua," so maybe he was feeling more fit.

"Ball and Chain"

http://youtu.be/8xKvZOxSSOA

http://images.marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/hi/43/43213/eltonjohn1982northamerican.jpg

I love this one: Elton channeling Lindsey Buckingham, doing a song seemingly written for Juice Newton

Pete Townshend on acoustic.

and, yeah, this is brisk, playful, and energetic: the best of the album tracks to date, and better than every single I've heard.

So far Jump Up! has been the big surprise of this survey---I might pick it up when I see it in the $2 LP bin (it's been there often)

Bernie disagrees:

In a 2010 Sirius radio special, John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin, called Jump Up! "one of our worst albums," adding "it's a terrible, awful, disposable album, but it had 'Empty Garden' on it, so it's worth it for that one song.

"Legal Boys"

http://youtu.be/GAQYoWzTnow

http://bootlegdownloads.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ejg.jpg

contender for "most misleading title in Elton John catalog" award

Another not bad song, and brief. Even the Taupin lyric is coherent.

de-lurking again to say col is completely otm about the lindsey buckingham-ness of "ball and chain." but that brief modulation in the middle -- he goes up a full step for a verse and then, as if thinking better of the idea, suddenly modulates back down -- is bizarre, and it sounds like he never quite figured out how to sing through those changes, especially the downward one.

i like the matter-of-fact rawness of "legal boys" but having a hard time wrapping my head around the music. it seems stitched together.

thoughts on the album so far? I'm also leaning towards buying it (it's cheap).

"I Am Your Robot"

http://youtu.be/3GQ_0A3CgxM

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ERcyYzWYWLw/THMUf1nX0cI/AAAAAAAAFho/WhlbI5ke6lI/s640/slide0056_image149.jpg

The chorus is uninspired lyrically and melodically but the verses are tough; it's clear this song is intended as manifesto.

Yeah, this deserves better, refrain-wise, but it's nicely weird: there are so many brutally elongated phrases that it's like EJ's in open revolt against his own melody. "robot" synth effects seem inspired by Peter Davision-era Doctor Who

potentially good song here -- i don't mind the refrain, at least compositionally -- but the arrangement and production are trying way too hard. it's like he's trying to triangulate old glam elton, new new-wave elton and forever AM radio elton in one weird little anthem. redo it as a synth-and-vocoder track, stick it on neil young's trans (release date: eight months from now), and you might have something.

ok, time for one of the big ones...

"Blue Eyes"

http://youtu.be/4CiyKeSnSxk

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120130180105/lyricwiki/images/4/47/Elton_John_-_Blue_Eyes.jpg

A good friend says this is his favorite Elton song. It's not in my top ten but I like it. Simplicity is its strength (thanks, Gary Osborne). Elton takes advantage of his deepened voice, only going for bathos once (BABEE'S got blue EEEEYYYYES)

some gorgeous chord progs here: an opening B-flat 6th to an F major/F minor shift (on "baby's got"), then these dense augmented E-flats on "deep blue sea." Fine vocal, too: sung under the spell of Dean Martin, EJ later said. Agree the Osbourne lyric works well: "I am home again" resounds

yeah he's in a band and he also praises the chords

only thing i'd lose is the cloying electric piano. Porcaro's brush drumming is a nice touch, tho

weird to see it peaked #12 in the US: thought this was a much bigger hit.

big A/C hit though

Yeah I love this song, definitely one of my favorites of his. Chords are incredible, and it's up there with his best low-register performances. Always thought he was channeling Sinatra on this, probably because of the title!

Leslie Cantor2 months ago

This song is so beautiful! It makes me think of the woman of my dreams, Ashley, who has blue eyes, I love you baby!

beautiful performance of a beautiful piece of music with -- i hate to be that guy but someone has to -- a lyric that makes me see blue, like a blue turtleneck on a blue person with blue blue eyes on a blue man group blu-ray disc.

but then again, as we learned from years of john/taupin classics, elton is almost incapable of writing great music without a wtf lyric.

but bernie wrote wtf lyrics for the ages. this gary osborne effort just makes me blue.

stupid question that never occurred to me before: was the line "blue eyes laughing in the sun" meant as a play on "blue eyes crying in the rain," or is that giving osborne too much credit?

no, i think that's about the limit of Osbourne's wordplay.

the lyric's no masterpiece (but I think it generally works and there are some good lines). Shame EJ couldn't have teamed with Trust-era Elvis Costello for it.

"Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny)"

http://youtu.be/RDRmDlJtIdU

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W99CVQqRl2Y/TtqEusUOj6I/AAAAAAAACGU/ngiZtgCJgdU/s1600/elton-lennon-thanksgiving.jpg

McCartney's "Here Today," released the same year, is the only Lennon tribute that matters: it's a man humbled by life, still sounding half in shock from his loss and grateful for his memories.

I'm sure Elton's anguish was real but this tribute veers from the maudlin to the grotesque: the ridden-to-exhaustion metaphors, the harpsichord fills that sounds like they're from The Exorcist.

"JOSHUA LOVEHALL
1 year ago

I remember The Day John Lennon was killed. It was a cold cloudy day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was Big News But there was one bright spot that day. My Niece was born. She only knows about John because every now and then I tell her how on the day she was born A great Man was assasinated."

The hey-look-we-got-keyboards! arrangement is a bit much, agreed, but the verses are okay.

Paul Simon's "The Late Great Johnny Ace" is tops.