"Hard Luck Story" is, I believe, a very good example of how far Taupin had come as a lyricist since the late 60's. Ultimately a continuation of a theme that ran through "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "Snookeroo" (written for and performed by Ringo Starr on his 1974 album Goodnight Vienna), that of the working class joe and the things he has to do to get by, when you scan the lyrics on their own, you get a vivid portrayal of a fellow who's determined to keep on doing what he has to do and doesn't want to hear any complaining. Taupin eschews clever wordplay and metaphor, and writes directly to the listener.
So curiously, Elton casts the track in the same kid of hopped-up disco-flavored boogie shuffle that comes across as a warm-up for the excesses of next year's Blue Moves finale, "Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance)". Of course it's tuneful, and of course it does rock out, but the "Oo-ee-oo-ee-ooh"s that he begins every line of the chorus with wear out their welcome quickly, and become annoying as he repeats it ad infinitum as the song slowly fades out.
This one is credited to "Ann Orson and Carte Blanche", which are the pseudonyms Elton and Bernie used when writing for others, especially Kiki Dee (who contributes to the BV's on Elton's version)- and sure enough, here's this track, apparently released as a 1974 non-LP single. I don't know how Kiki finessed the gender-specificity, since I haven't heard her version, but it does point out that this track predates Captain Fantastic as well as Westies.
Showing posts with label Rock of the Westies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock of the Westies. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Grow Some Funk of Your Own
Amusing little fish-out-of-water story, as the singer ogles some Mexican senorita in a south of the border bar and runs afoul of her "brass-knuckled boyfriend", who doesn't appreciate it one bit. Really, a lot of the humor here comes from the listener imagining diminutive Reg Dwight in such a situation in the first place- "He was so macho", Elton sings with a put-on 'fraidy-cat accent.
Other than the Bo Diddleyesque "Billy Bones and the White Bird", "Funk" is the hardest-rocking, tempo-wise, cut on what is generally viewed as an album designed to showcase the new band doing just that; it's odd, then, that Johnstone's abrasive guitar, sounding like 1973 all over again, is undercut with jazzy keyboard figures and Ray Cooper's vibes and castanets. The idea is to simulate a kind of Latin sound, but instead it comes closer to Steely Dan, like another rockish Westies track, "Feed Me".
Released as a double A-side with its successor on the album "I Feel Like a Bullet (in the Gun of Robert Ford", it was a top 20 hit in the US, but did not chart in the UK.
Other than the Bo Diddleyesque "Billy Bones and the White Bird", "Funk" is the hardest-rocking, tempo-wise, cut on what is generally viewed as an album designed to showcase the new band doing just that; it's odd, then, that Johnstone's abrasive guitar, sounding like 1973 all over again, is undercut with jazzy keyboard figures and Ray Cooper's vibes and castanets. The idea is to simulate a kind of Latin sound, but instead it comes closer to Steely Dan, like another rockish Westies track, "Feed Me".
Released as a double A-side with its successor on the album "I Feel Like a Bullet (in the Gun of Robert Ford", it was a top 20 hit in the US, but did not chart in the UK.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Island Girl
In these would-be enlightened times, it's pretty common to see any mention of race in popular music or films or anything being decried as racist, as if mere acknowledgment deserves condemnation. The racist charge has often been levied against this, the first single from Rock of the Westies, but honestly I don't see it. If Bernie's guilty of anything, it's a slight air of condescension in the tone of his appraisal of the Jamaican prostitute whom he feels could and should be doing better things with her life, and the boyfriend she left behind who tells us all about her.
Elton affects a faux Jamaican accent as he sings, and combined with Bernie's attempts to imitate the patois, that practically guarantees that this will always remain on those "frequently misheard lyrics" lists that pop up here and there. The accompaniment mostly consists of James Newton Howard playing a lot of synths, some set to approximate steel drums, and the rhythm section of the post-Dee/Nigel band. Even though it was quite atypical for radio at the time, it's very catchy and wound up being a huge hit, despite its somewhat risque lyrical content.
Elton affects a faux Jamaican accent as he sings, and combined with Bernie's attempts to imitate the patois, that practically guarantees that this will always remain on those "frequently misheard lyrics" lists that pop up here and there. The accompaniment mostly consists of James Newton Howard playing a lot of synths, some set to approximate steel drums, and the rhythm section of the post-Dee/Nigel band. Even though it was quite atypical for radio at the time, it's very catchy and wound up being a huge hit, despite its somewhat risque lyrical content.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Feed Me
No, it's not a song written for the Little Shop of Horrors soundtrack.
What it is is a Steely Dan-style jazz-tinged track, the lyrics of which seem to deal with drug addiction withdrawal-induced paranoia, to wit:
Don't close the shades
I'm scared of the darkness
I'm cold as a razor blade
Inches from madness
Now, there's no doubt that lots of drug abuse was a significant part of the Elton John (and by that I mean Elton John in a collective sense, not Reg Dwight the person) experience, would still be for several more years, (this was the mid-1970's after all) but it's a bit dismaying to scan the lyrics and get the impression that this was perhaps some sort of observation by Bernie, or maybe even an attempt at a cautionary tale. Heroin addiction hasn't normally been associated with the Elton camp. Perhaps it was a stab at a fictional account, writing a character, who can say.
It contains a passage that only Bernie would choose to write:
Feed me
Feed my needs and then just leave me
Let me go back where you found me
'Cause I miss my basement
The sweet smell of new paint
The warmth and the comforts of home
So feed me
Give me my treatment and free me
My arms are so hungry so feed me
I can think of many things one could bring to bear when describing withdrawal, but home improvement descriptions aren't among them- I wouldn't think. He's trying to contrast the character's bleak situation with a fond memory of his home, but it just seems incongruous when placed with the rest of the lyrics. Oh well.
As stated above, it's a Dan-style, mid-tempo track; electric piano by James Newton Howard, a nifty fuzz-guitar riff from Davey Johnstone and cool BVs from the Kiki Dee/Elton/Davey/Caleb Quaye/Clive Franks aggregate make it sound that way.
Nice track; not a standout- it's a bit slick and repetitive for that- but as is so often the case with Elton the melody's good and stays with the listener.
What it is is a Steely Dan-style jazz-tinged track, the lyrics of which seem to deal with drug addiction withdrawal-induced paranoia, to wit:
Don't close the shades
I'm scared of the darkness
I'm cold as a razor blade
Inches from madness
Now, there's no doubt that lots of drug abuse was a significant part of the Elton John (and by that I mean Elton John in a collective sense, not Reg Dwight the person) experience, would still be for several more years, (this was the mid-1970's after all) but it's a bit dismaying to scan the lyrics and get the impression that this was perhaps some sort of observation by Bernie, or maybe even an attempt at a cautionary tale. Heroin addiction hasn't normally been associated with the Elton camp. Perhaps it was a stab at a fictional account, writing a character, who can say.
It contains a passage that only Bernie would choose to write:
Feed me
Feed my needs and then just leave me
Let me go back where you found me
'Cause I miss my basement
The sweet smell of new paint
The warmth and the comforts of home
So feed me
Give me my treatment and free me
My arms are so hungry so feed me
I can think of many things one could bring to bear when describing withdrawal, but home improvement descriptions aren't among them- I wouldn't think. He's trying to contrast the character's bleak situation with a fond memory of his home, but it just seems incongruous when placed with the rest of the lyrics. Oh well.
As stated above, it's a Dan-style, mid-tempo track; electric piano by James Newton Howard, a nifty fuzz-guitar riff from Davey Johnstone and cool BVs from the Kiki Dee/Elton/Davey/Caleb Quaye/Clive Franks aggregate make it sound that way.
Nice track; not a standout- it's a bit slick and repetitive for that- but as is so often the case with Elton the melody's good and stays with the listener.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Billy Bones and the White Bird
Westies' closer is an odd one- Rime of the Ancient Mariner-style lyric content, married to a slamming Bo Diddley beat, which gives way to a stanza accompanied by a disco-style high hat and the bogus pomp of fanfare-style synth horns, and also spiced with a nifty, jazzy middle section which features a lively synth/guitar duet by James Newton Howard and Davey Johnstone.
What, if anything, the lyrics mean is open to interpretation; I've seen it mentioned that they are perhaps some sort of allusion to John's escalating drug abuse, which is valid, but I suspect that the "white bird" is less a literal reference to cocaine than a reference to the albatross that Coleridge's protagonist was haunted by, and which would seem to represent the bad vibes, unease and dismay with which Bernie surely must have been experiencing in regards to most aspects of his (and John's) career in 1975- events which began with their meteoric ascent to fame and all the attendant insanity, the abrupt early 1975 sacking of half the original EJ Band, and would come to a head a little over a year later, leading to the post-Blue Moves separation of the pair in 1978.
It's interesting that as with Moves' "Crazy Water", Taupin chose to illustrate his unease with nautical-style lyrical content. The Brown Dirt Cowboy didn't seem to be at home on the open seas.
What, if anything, the lyrics mean is open to interpretation; I've seen it mentioned that they are perhaps some sort of allusion to John's escalating drug abuse, which is valid, but I suspect that the "white bird" is less a literal reference to cocaine than a reference to the albatross that Coleridge's protagonist was haunted by, and which would seem to represent the bad vibes, unease and dismay with which Bernie surely must have been experiencing in regards to most aspects of his (and John's) career in 1975- events which began with their meteoric ascent to fame and all the attendant insanity, the abrupt early 1975 sacking of half the original EJ Band, and would come to a head a little over a year later, leading to the post-Blue Moves separation of the pair in 1978.
It's interesting that as with Moves' "Crazy Water", Taupin chose to illustrate his unease with nautical-style lyrical content. The Brown Dirt Cowboy didn't seem to be at home on the open seas.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)
Just when, by 1975, you think Bernie has pretty much exhausted his bag of Old West references...we get this!
Robert Ford was, of course, the man who fatally shot Jesse James in the back- as we will soon be reminded when the Brad Pitt film about same comes out next weekend. Bernie takes this cowardly act and adapts it to an account of a young man who has broken up with his girlfriend and now feels guilty about it, to the point of wanting to try and "patch it up". How much his real-life rocky marriage situation at the time is being inferred I cannot say, but one would assume that there is a fair amount of self-reference going on...and would really come into the fore on the next album.
Elton casts these sentiments in a beautiful melody, using the Westies band electric piano/synth-strings/guitar/bass/drums mix; it has a somewhat lounge-jazzy feel and John sings with a lot of feeling. Davey Johnstone contributes a lovely, howling sustain-boosted guitar solo.
Even though "Island Girl" was the hit from the Westies album, to me it seems that "Bullet" is the album's emotional centerpiece and certainly one of the best (if not THE best) songs on the record. However, when it was released as a double A-side with "Grow Some Funk of Your Own", it was only a moderate hit.
Robert Ford was, of course, the man who fatally shot Jesse James in the back- as we will soon be reminded when the Brad Pitt film about same comes out next weekend. Bernie takes this cowardly act and adapts it to an account of a young man who has broken up with his girlfriend and now feels guilty about it, to the point of wanting to try and "patch it up". How much his real-life rocky marriage situation at the time is being inferred I cannot say, but one would assume that there is a fair amount of self-reference going on...and would really come into the fore on the next album.
Elton casts these sentiments in a beautiful melody, using the Westies band electric piano/synth-strings/guitar/bass/drums mix; it has a somewhat lounge-jazzy feel and John sings with a lot of feeling. Davey Johnstone contributes a lovely, howling sustain-boosted guitar solo.
Even though "Island Girl" was the hit from the Westies album, to me it seems that "Bullet" is the album's emotional centerpiece and certainly one of the best (if not THE best) songs on the record. However, when it was released as a double A-side with "Grow Some Funk of Your Own", it was only a moderate hit.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Street Kids
A Damon Runyan-esque song about juvenile delinquents headed for a street fight of some sort, accompanied by keening synths, Stonesy guitar and a descending rapid fire run of notes on the piano.
Perhaps Bernie had been watching a lot of films like Angels with Dirty Faces or some of the Bowery Boys series, who knows. He was always drawing inspiration from Hollywood, and perhaps this was just the latest example. Elton doesn't seem terribly interested in it, though, although he does belt out a few verses with a professional sort of gusto, and the presentation is too mid-70's Rock to have any sort of nostalgic-for-Leo Gorcey effect. It's also about two minutes too long for my liking, devolving into monotony before it's done.
Of course, it's possible that Bernie was reacting to the then-in-its-infancy Punk movement, but 1975 was just a little early and Taupin was never usually that ahead of the curve...
Perhaps Bernie had been watching a lot of films like Angels with Dirty Faces or some of the Bowery Boys series, who knows. He was always drawing inspiration from Hollywood, and perhaps this was just the latest example. Elton doesn't seem terribly interested in it, though, although he does belt out a few verses with a professional sort of gusto, and the presentation is too mid-70's Rock to have any sort of nostalgic-for-Leo Gorcey effect. It's also about two minutes too long for my liking, devolving into monotony before it's done.
Of course, it's possible that Bernie was reacting to the then-in-its-infancy Punk movement, but 1975 was just a little early and Taupin was never usually that ahead of the curve...
Friday, August 17, 2007
Medley: Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly
Part one, "Yell Help", is essentially a collection of malapropisms, strung together and set to a rollicking synth/clavinet/rock guitar dominated melody, accompanied by a somewhat slightly off-key Labelle and Elton pseudonym "Ann Orson" oohing and aahing along.
Part two, "Wednesday", is a pretty ballad type of thing- it's really only four lines long, and sounds like John didn't want to take the time to finish it. Perhaps it was decided at some point that it was too similar to the spotlight ballad on Rock, "I Feel Like a Bullet (in the Gun of Robert Ford)". Hard to say. The singer wishes it wasn't Wednesday night, the 13th of July, and wants to be somewhere else. Your guess is as good as mine as to anything else.
It then segues into "Ugly", perhaps less about the female subject of the song being physically ugly than it is about her being ugly inside, and even then probably in a good way. It's kind of an extension of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road's "Dirty Little Girl" and Caribou's "Stinker". The musical accompaniment for this one is less propulsive than "Yell Help", it's a bit more funky.
Both "Help" and "Ugly" can be said to contain the sexist streak that Bernie was sometimes capable of in his lyrics; lines like
`Cause down the road you find someone else who's looking
Down the road you seen another sweet lady cooking
and
Now hell I don't mind women of her kind
I'll even pay sometimes for a woman that's ugly
can certainly be interpreted that way, but I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt- these tracks, taken all together, come across as the sort of joking banter that mates would share over a pint in the pub, and not meant in a vicious way.
A reprise of "Yell Help", which features a lot of vamping by Labelle, closes the track.
Regardless of what you might think about the lyrical content, it's an unusual and effective kickoff to one of Elton's most interesting overall efforts.
Part two, "Wednesday", is a pretty ballad type of thing- it's really only four lines long, and sounds like John didn't want to take the time to finish it. Perhaps it was decided at some point that it was too similar to the spotlight ballad on Rock, "I Feel Like a Bullet (in the Gun of Robert Ford)". Hard to say. The singer wishes it wasn't Wednesday night, the 13th of July, and wants to be somewhere else. Your guess is as good as mine as to anything else.
It then segues into "Ugly", perhaps less about the female subject of the song being physically ugly than it is about her being ugly inside, and even then probably in a good way. It's kind of an extension of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road's "Dirty Little Girl" and Caribou's "Stinker". The musical accompaniment for this one is less propulsive than "Yell Help", it's a bit more funky.
Both "Help" and "Ugly" can be said to contain the sexist streak that Bernie was sometimes capable of in his lyrics; lines like
`Cause down the road you find someone else who's looking
Down the road you seen another sweet lady cooking
and
Now hell I don't mind women of her kind
I'll even pay sometimes for a woman that's ugly
can certainly be interpreted that way, but I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt- these tracks, taken all together, come across as the sort of joking banter that mates would share over a pint in the pub, and not meant in a vicious way.
A reprise of "Yell Help", which features a lot of vamping by Labelle, closes the track.
Regardless of what you might think about the lyrical content, it's an unusual and effective kickoff to one of Elton's most interesting overall efforts.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)
Dan Dare is a British spaceman comic book hero with whom young Reggie Dwight and Bernie Taupin would have been very familiar with, I'm sure."Dare" fits right in on the mostly sunny vibe of the outstanding Westies album- it bops along agreeably, with low-register voice-box guitar work (all the rage then courtesy of Peter Frampton and Joe Walsh- Walsh's former bassist Kenny Passarelli played on this LP, and was Dee Murray's replacement in this period) and chiming, burbling high-register synths (courtesy of new sideman James Newton Howard) punctuating its bouncy melody. There is a little tinge of melancholy to the lyric, which seems to have the singer saying goodbye to his childhood hero and, I suppose, childhood concerns in general, with more than a touch of cynicism apparent...yet another example of Elton's apparent love of providing contrasts between words and performance. Fortunately, it never gets maudlin or mean-spirited. A nice touch is the a capella ending (complete with playful yelps), and Taupin gets in a cute joke as the singer confides:
Dan Dare doesn't know it
He doesn't know it
He doesn't know it
But I liked the Mekon.
The Mekon, of course, being Dan's arch-enemy.
John wanted this to be the first single from the LP; wiser heads prevailed and chose "Island Girl", which went on to top the charts. It completes a trilogy of sorts of outer space-themed songs with "Rocket Man" and "I've Seen the Saucers".
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