After EMPTY SKY’s release, Elton and Bernie kept writing more and more songs, enough so that they actually were able to get two albums’ worth of material out of them (a bit more on that when we get to TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION). Initially, things looked like they might proceed in a similar fashion to EMPTY SKY. In 1969, a few months after EMPTY SKY’s release, Steve Brown recorded run-throughs of some of these songs with Elton and Caleb’s band Hookfoot. In the end, though, Brown came to the conclusion that he was not the right man for the job and instead found arranger Paul Buckmaster and producer Gus Dudgeon, both fresh off working on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and both would play an important part throughout the Elton John journey.
For the first album based on this new material, Gus and Paul took a completely different approach. Instead of using a regular band, session musicians were hired, making Caleb the only musician besides Elton to be involved in these sessions, and even he doesn’t appear on that many tracks. And on top of that was the orchestra, which brought an extra layer to the proceedings that gave the album and Elton their initial identities. It both worked for and against him…more on that in a moment.
It starts off with some song called “Your Song”. Of course it’s a classic, we all know that and, yeah, it’s completely deserving of that. The source of inspiration for Elton and Bernie songs has often not been very clear; unlike Lennon-McCartney, they’re usually more willing to let others find their own interpretations. With “Your Song”, Elton had previously claimed it was about Bernie’s girlfriend at the time, while Bernie claimed it was about everyone. I have no idea who’s right, but I think Bernie’s interpretation speaks as to why the song works so well: it’s spoken to the audience, and gives a very positive message.
It’s then followed by “I Need You To Turn To”, which again features Elton on harpsichord. Interestingly, much like “Your Song”, it’s again using the second person. The harpsichord playing is nice and the orchestra is subtle enough that it provides the appropriate backup.
“Take Me to the Pilot” was actually originally an A-Side with “Your Song” as the B-Side, but people tended to prefer the latter when playing it on the radio. But “Take Me to the Pilot” is still a fun song. I especially love the little orchestra flourishes after Elton sings “Take me to the pilot for control”.
“No Shoestrings on Louise” is another Rolling Stones tribute, and you can really hear the Jagger influence in Elton’s vocals. It’s really fun, and the background singers make it even more fun to listen to.
The middle is where things go a bit downhill. “First Episode at Hienton” is kind of a boring song that gets weird due to its use of the Moog synthesizer. The Moog was an instrument that could work, and there is a better example on this album, but here it sounds like a flying saucer is about to abduct Elton while he’s just trying to sing this ballad that has nothing to do with that!
“Sixty Years On” is my least favorite song on the album. The song itself is not the problem (17-11-70 is proof of that), but rather the issue is the ridiculously overdone arrangement. It starts with this weird string part at the beginning that wasn’t even supposed to be part of the song; it was just a random thing Buckmaster recorded and Gus decided to attach it to the beginning of the song. Then the song essentially becomes a showcase for Buckmaster to demonstrate how he uses strings and harp, and…my gosh, it’s so boring! I appreciate certain classical music, but it’s got to have a melody that truly supports it, and this doesn’t. This was meant to be a heavier rock song, as evidenced by the way Elton played the chords on the demo, and instead of following that, Buckmaster had Elton not even play piano at all on it. No, it’s not always a bad thing for Elton to be on vocals only; TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION is proof of that. But this one takes it to a point where it doesn’t even sound like an Elton John song at all, but rather a song he’s the guest on…and let me tell you, considering how many styles Elton covers, that’s pretty hard to do!
Things improve with the next song, “Border Song”, which is a spiritual-like number featuring a much more subtle arrangement backed by a choir. I really like this song; the piano’s in the forefront, Elton’s voice is great, and I especially love the drumming. Actually, the drumming is really good throughout the record in general. The main drummers were Barry Morgan and Terry Cox, both of whom create this incredibly full drum sound that I haven’t hear on many other records. In his book on Elton, TIN PAN ALLEY, Keith Hayward mentions Morgan was hired because he had the ability to make his tom-tom drum sound like an orchestra timpani, and I can hear that in both Morgan and Cox’s work. I love Nigel Olsson, and he also created a full drum sound in his own way, but the drumming style here is its own unique thing that contributes to giving the album its own identity.
“The Greatest Discovery” is another one I’m not a huge fan of. I like the trumpets on it, but overall, it’s another song that kind of bores me and while not nearly as bad as in “Sixty Years On”, it has another drawn out orchestral intro.
“The Cage” picks things up again with a cool, upbeat melody. The drumming, guitar, and bass playing are all excellent and this one does make good use of the Moog synthesizer for the middle instrumental section. It works here because the song is a dark song and it properly contributes to that atmosphere.
And finally, there’s “The King Must Die”, the very definition of grand ending. I love everything about this song; I love the way it starts with just Elton on piano, the way the trumpets come in and really give off this regal sound, the drums that sound like a legitimate orchestral timpani, the way Elton keeps singing “the king is dead” in the coda only to pause and then leave us with a chilling ending…gosh, this song is just so good. This is where the balance between Elton and Buckmaster is at its best. The orchestra does provide a really great support to Elton…but they’re still support. At the end of the day, it’s still Elton who’s leading the charge; just listen to the way he bangs the chords out after the second chorus and try telling me Buckmaster and Dudgeon didn’t realize this! It’s often a toss-up between this and “Your Song” for my favorite song on the album. At the moment, I’m leaning towards this, but tomorrow it could very well be “Your Song”; both songs just have such a great impact in two totally different ways.
ELTON JOHN is an album full of great songs and professional production that usually works very well. But at the same time, I do see what Elton meant when he later said he feared getting labeled specifically as that type of act. There are some cases where Buckmaster and Dudgeon felt like they were going a bit too overboard with the arrangements and lost sight of who they were working with. Luckily, they would not repeat this mistake and, again, it’s only really a problem on a few songs; most of them do benefit from their work and are really memorable songs. Overall, a good album that just has a few flaws that would be worked out in the future.
And now, for the singles:
“Bad Side of the Moon” was the B-Side to the “Border Song” single. This song actually did become a hit in Canada, but it was for a band called April Wine. Every time I drive up to Canada, I somehow manage to catch this on a classic rock station. Elton’s version is great; I love the fade-in with the snare drum and the lead guitar playing as well. Elton doesn’t play piano here, but it works because the musicians properly support the style he was going for, and the orchestra adds an extra flair. I think the album could have benefited from its inclusion; it could have easily replaced “Sixty Years On”.
“Rock and Roll Madonna” was a single-only A-side that was actually recorded at the beginning of the TUMBLEWEED sessions, but it’s usually associated with this album due to being released close to it. This is another early instance where I think Dudgeon made the wrong decision. The song is played kind of slow and he put in these crowd effects, which was an idea he would successfully use for atmosphere later on “Bennie and the Jets”, but here it comes across as them trying to make the song sound more impressive than it actually was. When Giles Martin recorded his version of this song for the ROCKETMAN soundtrack, he made a good decision and modeled it after the faster and looser Steve Brown version instead.
And finally, we have “Madonna”’s B-Side, “Grey Seal”, which some of you may recognize as it was later re-recorded for GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD. Overall, the song itself is great and I do think the arrangement here works. It’s a nice version, but I still prefer the YELLOW BRICK ROAD version. It feels much more at home on that album whereas here it was a fascinating outlier; lyrically, it had a bit of a mythological thing going, which was actually more in line with what was on EMPTY SKY. It just needed a few years before it could properly get the spotlight and when it did, it delivered.
