I've Been Loving You

From March of 1968, the very first single to come out in the U.K. under the Elton John name, with lyrics (according to the liner notes of Rare Masters) by Elton, not Bernie and produced by Caleb Quaye. Sadly, it did not chart.

After a somewhat tentative staggered tempo piano intro, this lurches into the same type of radio-friendly bubblegum pop that the likes of the Grass Roots, Ohio Express, and the Archies would have been right at home with. Although the lyric content is a bit contradictory in its message for bubblegum, it has a decent hook and is quite catchy, and while I'm certainly no expert on what the British pop listeners were buying in enough numbers to get songs on the charts, I can only surmise that unfamiliarity with the artist was the only reason that it didn't get sufficient airplay.

Not the most auspicious of debuts, but a fine song nonetheless.

Philadelphia Freedom

The Philadelphia Freedoms were one of the charter members of the World Team Tennis League, a league founded to provide team-oriented professional tennis in the USA. One of its most notable players in the early years was Billie Jean King, who ended up serving several years as commissioner after she retired as a player. One of her friends was Elton, and it was for her that he and Bernie composed this song.

Recorded late in 1974, released in February of 1975 and curiously credited to "The Elton John Band" on the picture sleeve, it was a romping, stomping Philly soul track, complete with Gamble and Huff-style strings, and augmented by some abrasive guitar licks from Davey just to keep them honest. The Muscle Shoals Horns are also somewhere in the mix. It was yet another Elton cut that presaged the Disco music phenomenon that the Bee Gees and Chic took even further a year or two later. It is also a valentine to the USA from Bernie, who eventually came to live over here, as did Elton.

Of course, it wouldn't be Bernie without some sort of "Say what now" lyric, and the line about how the "...Whippoorwill of Freedom zapped me right between the eyes" serves very well in this case. But the chorus is an excellent piece of writing, especially if one is inclined to wax patriotic.

Even though I wasn't particularly crazy about this song as a teenager, and never was much for Disco music either in general, over the years this one has really grown on me and I never mind hearing it on the radio or on compliation albums.

Teacher I Need You

One quarter doowop, one quarter show tune, one quarter Chuck Berry, and one quarter Elton-pop, "Teacher" is Bernie's take on the age-old trope of the student that's in unrequited lust with his teacher- Van Halen took it to the bank eleven years later with "Hot for Teacher".

Prominent in the arrangement are Elton's cascading piano triplets, in tandem with the Davey/Dee/Nigel/EJ backing vocals whoa-oh-oh-ohing throughout, accompanied by subdued Mellotron, set to sound like horns and strings. I like they way they're recorded, with a spacey, echoing sound a la Spector.

As I recall, this was one of my favorite tracks when I first acquired Don't Shoot Me oh so long ago. It's not so much anymore, but it's still a fine track with a memorable melody.

Rocket Man (I Think It's Gonna Be a Long Long Time)

It's difficult to regard what is arguably Elton's most popular and well-known hit without acknowledging David Bowie's 1969 hit "Space Oddity", of which this seems to be a prequel, and Bernie's avowed inspiration, Ray Bradbury's short story "The Rocket Man", one of the tales included in his The Illustrated Man. I don't know how much Bowie's song was on their minds when they conceived this, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't there.

Lyrically, it's fairly simple, without a lot of the alienation-themed baggage of Bowie's song- an astronaut has mixed feelings about his job and how it affects his wife and children. Taupin comes up with some nicely evocative lines which get this across efficiently.

Instrumentation is pretty much the standard Davey/Dee/Nigel era band, with their excellent harmony on the backing vocals, and augmented by David Hentschel on synths. It's taken at a midtempo ballad style. One of the most effective parts of the song, at least to me, is towards the end when Taupin gets reflective with the lines "And all this science I don't understand/It's just my job five days a week/A rocket man...", Elton pauses for a beat after the word "science", while Hentschel plays a countermelody on the synth, eventually playing longer, more sustained notes to match Elton's held out words as he sings "A rocket- maaan". It's just a small moment, but it makes the astronaut's dilemma all the more poignant and sets up the chorus repetition on the fadeout.

Released in April 1972 in advance of Honky Chateau, "Rocket Man", surprisingly, wasn't a #1 hit- it went to #2 in the U.K. and #6 in the USA. But it's certainly had a long life afterwards, appearing in tons of films and television shows. And who can forget William Shatner's legendary version?

Sweet Painted Lady

We've established this much by now: Bernie was disapproving of whores, or at least he was in the lyrics he wrote. So naturally, anytime a prostitute or prostitution is the subject of one of his songs, you know you'll get lyrics like this:

Oh sweet painted lady
Seems it's always been the same
Getting paid for being laid
Guess that's the name of the game

But really, when you look at the words objectively, there's a romanticism and sentimentality that's missing from, say "Island Girl" or "You're So Static", and that gets this one across. It's written from the point of view of a sailor on shore leave, who is apparently ruminating on the ladies of the evening he and his mates avail themselves of while off the ship.

It helps that Elton crafted a lovely melody for the tune, with accordions gently swaying in the background, a somewhat bawdy-sounding trombone punctuating many of the lines, and of course his 3 AM honky-tonk-style piano carrying the rest.

In keeping with the not-specifically-stated but present nonetheless 30's-40's Hollywood movie feel of many of Yellow Brick Road's tracks, this one does conjure up a hundred and one shore-leave type B-movies of those years, and maybe Bing Crosby or Dean Martin might have been a suitable choice to sing it. At least in my mind, anyway...

Ho, Ho, Ho (Who'd Be a Turkey at Christmas)

If you thought "Step into Christmas" was slight...well, you should get a load of its B-side; it makes "Step" seem like "Rocket Man" in comparison.

Recorded at the same November 1973 sessions as "Step", and probably after many pints (among other substances) had been consumed, it's a very loose performance featuring silly lyrics that tell the story of a brandy-fueled encounter with Santa Claus, described as the "Bearded Weirdie":

On my roof there's snorting sounds, and bells inside my head
My vision's blurred with colour, and all he sees is red
There's a pair of large sized wellies coming down my flue
And the smell of burning rubber, oh is filling up the room

All sung in speeded-up and slowed-down voices, something like the fan club-only holiday songs the Beatles and especially John Lennon used to cook up. It's set to a lockstep "Bennie and the Jets" type tempo, and was probably a gas to record. To listen to, not so much, although it is hard not to smile once in a while at how goofy they're all being and how much fun they seem to be having. Marc Bolan is said to be in the mix somewhere too, he and Elton were getting on in those days. The guitar solo at the end sounds something like Marc's style (I had always assumed it was Johnstone) but it's a little restrained. Having not seen true credits for this, I like to think it is the T. Rexster. 

Guess he got the urge to do holiday recordings out of his system with this and its A-side partner, because to my knowledge Elton never attempted to do another Christmas song, at least during his "classic" years.

Step into Christmas

At some point in their career, just about every performer of any consequence at all gets around to doing some sort of Christmas song and/or album, and this was Elton and Bernie's stab at writing a perennial. Didn't quite happen, but this isn't completely without merit.

It opens up with the standard Phil Spector Wall of Sound treatment- acoustic guitars strum, castanets and other percussion accentuate the beat, and everything sounds like it was recorded in a large, echo-laden hall. The beat is kept lively, and it boogies along agreeably, but Elton's melody is not the most memorable he's ever written even though the chorus is quite catchy, through repetition if nothing else- in fact, that's my biggest problem with this cut: it's about two minutes too long, and Elton & Co. simply sing and sing and sing the chorus over and over as if they have run out of song but don't know when to end it. Some judicious editing might have helped, is all I'm saying. He must have had some trouble with the key; Dudgeon speeds his voice up quite noticeably.

Lyrically, it's basically a thank-you to his fans, as it comes out of arguably his most successful period, late 1973, as well as an invitation to all listeners to indulge themselves in holiday revelry in front of their stereo speakers. I doubt Taupin spent much time on the words.

And say, since it's Christmas Eve, how about a little gift: here's a link to the promotional video clip they made for the single, in which the classic band, along with Bernie, mugs mercilessly for almost five minutes. Enjoy, and happy holidays to all.