Elton John and Bernie Taupin

Cafe Society
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When all is said and done, if I had to pick one favorite music artist, it would be Elton John and Bernie Taupin. I include them as one because, for one thing, they would both — especially Elton — insist that I do, and for another, they are demonstrably far less apart than together. Elton couldn’t compose a decent lyric if his life depended on it (even though he taught Bernie the concept of “meter”) and Bernie lacks enough classical training to put into practice the musical ideas in his head.

I love the way they work together, or um, apart. They have never composed a song in the same room together. Bernie writes the lyrics like poetry, and Elton isolates himself with a piano and a stack of lyrics. He takes one off the stack, places it in front of him, and plays around with it for a bit. If he doesn’t have something going to his liking within five minutes or so, he puts it aside and picks up another one. He gives us a glimpse into this fascinating process in the video anthology, Two Rooms, where he reenacts the composition of none other than Tiny Dancer!

But most of all, I like the final product. Practically every piece they have done seems to me to be an absolutely perfect blend of song and lyric. They seem like soulmates. Thanks to his comprehensive classical training, Elton is able to put Bernie’s lyrics through the full range of music theory, and yet still keep it in roughly a rock genre. (Remember how hard it was to classify Elton’s music in 1970? Was it rock? Classical? Folk? Remember people calling him the new Bob Dylan? :D)

I’d like to hear from Elton John and Bernie Taupin fans, what are some of your favorite examples of their blending, i.e., the music complimenting the lyric? Let me give you a couple of examples to get things started.

Here’s one:

Come Down In Time — The whole song is a soft quasi-lamentation in which the rising and falling chords beautifully complement the broken phrasing of lyrics that convey the quiet desperation of a young man who seems to be beginning to recover from a broken heart and is making his first effort at asking “why?”. But the real clincher in this piece is the very last measure. The final lines are:

On “night”, Elton plays a birds-eye B5 chord. Because the chord has no third, it evokes the feeling of “hanging”, that is, the song doesn’t resolve to its tonic chord. What a beautiful technique for conveying Bernie’s lyrical intent! It just ends that way!

Here’s another:

This is the only song that ever actually surprised Bernie in the way that it turned out, I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself. He intended that it be a ballad about teen angst, but when Elton saw the lyric, he laughed out loud! This was just too melodramatic.

End result? A farce! And I mean a real farce. The thumb-dragging arpeggio slides into the chorus where “I think I’m gonna kill myself” is accompanied by none other than “Legs” (Larry) Smith tap dancing! to a sort of ragtime, lilty, and fivolous vaudeville-type showtune melody that needs only an 1890s bar with can-can dancers to be complete!

Nevertheless, all of it is brought back 'round to reality by the long bridge through a minor chord progression on the word “blues” (as in “teenage blues”). It’s just enough to remind the listener that teen suicide is not something to gloss over. You really get a feel of inside-outside in this piece. The view from the teen’s oblivious friends and family, and the view from the teen himself.

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I’m only a casual fan of Elton, but I’ve always thought he did have an excellent gift for melodies, even when I don’t particularly like the songs.

My favorite song of theirs, for obvious reasons :wink: , is Empty Garden (Hey Johnny). There’s nothing particulary sophisticated about the songwriting – in fact, it’s very pedestrian, using pretty much only the I, IV, IV, ii and vi chords in the key of E.

What I like about it is that Elton uses a pretty broad melody in the verses, using (I think) a little more than an octave. Then, in the first two lines of the chorus, he tightens up the melody to the range of about a fifth, with a chord change once every two bars: IV–I–IV–vi. On the third line, he lets out the range on the melody, and uses the ii (F#m) in place of the IV (A). It’s a really subtle effect, but his judicious use of that chord really works. It ends up looking like this:


              A                   E
And I've been knocking, but noone answers

              A                    C#m
And I've been knocking most of the day

              F#m               C#m
And I've been calling, "Hey hey Johnny,"

               A  B     E
Can't you come out to play?

There’s just something very simple, but plaintive and beautiful about it; and given the subject matter of the song, it’s a fitting tribute.

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«)?«{ Elton because I used to work for his tour accountant, and I’ve met Bernie mutliple times because I used to be his bookkeeper and now he’s a good friend of mine’s best friend.

Bernie is very, very shy about being complimented on his work. I only ever tried once, and it was to compliment “The Greatest Discovery”, which was a poem to his baby brother, Kip. And he just about turned beet red. But now that I think about it, that was another great example of Elton taking the lyric and musically flowing with it, since the tune itself (I can’t speak with such musical knowledge as you, Lib, I just learned how to read CDEFG this summer) builds and builds in the same way the child’s wonder at what’s happening does.

I’ve loved a great deal of their work, mostly the oldest stuff, though. Although I’ve heard great things about the new album, I should check it out.

Incidentally, “Come Down in Time” might be my all-time favorite elton/bernie tune. :slight_smile:

Stoid

Fun Factoid: I met Elton in his dressing room before a show, and the only people there were him, me, and Davey Johnstone’s then-wife, Rosa, who had brought me in there to meet him. It was completely awkward and strange. But a little later I got to stand next to and smell Sting, which was cool. And I sat in the front row that night, and I went to the after party at Le Dome, in the limo with Davey, and that was completely hilarious, because paparazzi were waiting and it was the first, and no doubt the last (barring any murders I might commit) time I stepped out of a limo and into a blinding explosion of flash bulbs popping. Until they realized we weren’t worth it.

Fun, though!

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Another fan of the older stuff here. And as long as we’re discussing some of the little-known older stuff, I’d like to consider “Amoreena” as an example of the perfect blend of music and lyrics.

The image of a woman “living like a lusty flower,” and “rolling through the hay like a puppy child,” is one that haunted me through my teenage years. Elton’s playful musical rendering helped form an image of a girl who would be a lot of fun (yes, in that way), as well as be a fun person in general.

I’ll add a vote for “The Greatest Discovery” also, and another from the same album is “First Episode at Hienton,” the melancholy tune about losing one’s virginity. “Now Valerie’s a woman, and Valerie is lonely.” Where are the fireworks that are supposed to go with such an act? Elton’s poignant music and Bernie’s lyrics go perfectly together.

Sorry I can’t contribute in terms of chord structure or musical theory, but I had to post a couple of thoughts. There are many more examples I could think of, but we’ll let somebody else have a turn. Good OP though!

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GREAT thread, Libertarian! I’ve been a long time fan of EJ/BT, and until now I thought I was their number 1 fan. Of course I still think I am, but now I know I have steady competition. :slight_smile:

Well I have heard Elton say in an interview that his favorite example of Bernie’s lyrics and his music gelling was in Candle in the Wind (the original). As for me personally, I would never be able to pick a favorite, but what comes to mind is We All Fall In Love Sometimes, from the Captain Fantastic album. A beautiful melody for these lines: Wise men say/It looks like rain today/It crackled on the speakers/And trickled down the sleepy subway trains/For heavy eyes could hardly hold us/Aching legs that often told us/It’s all worth it/We all fall in love sometimes…

And on “sometimes” it goes to a G minor chord to give it a somewhat lamenting, sad feel, similar to Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.

Going on to his more recent stuff, on The Big Picture there’s a song called Live Like Horses that again, is absolutely beautiful: Someday we’ll live like horses/Free rein from your old iron fences/There’s more ways than one/To regain your senses/Break out the stalls/And we’ll live like horses. It’s almost like an anthem, with a high melody, and a very long crescendo. It just builds and builds until it explodes, with a huge orchestra.

Anyway that’s some of my two cents. Stoid, I am hugely jealous you have/had so many ties to Elton and Bernie. My one claim to that was when my fiance and I visited England, we got to see Elton in concert there. As some people know, it’s a whole different ballgame over there. Pictures are allowed, no security, etc… We were in the seventh row, and we were sitting next to a couple from Ohio, and the four of us were the only ones really cheering! The Brits were very reserved… even after Crocodile Rock it was like golf claps. But us Americans (probably to their disdain) were standing up and screaming our heads off. Anyway, at one point after a song Elton looks right at us and gives us the thumbs up sign and a wink (I’m telling you, we were close). And later he broke out with a Sharpie and I ran up there and got his autograph. Doesn’t quite beat your story, but the game’s not over yet. :wink:

One last note to Lib.: you know the story of the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, don’t you? Elton was stuck in a hotel room because of bad weather for a 3-day weekend and had nothing to do. He had a stack of Bernie’s lyrics with them, and he wrote every song (all 17 of them!) in his hotel room that weekend. And this is an album that produced at least 5 hits, depending on what you consider a “hit”.

Well anyway, great topic. As a piano player myself, I own the sheet music to all of Elton’s albums except Too Low for Zero, A Single Man, and The Fox. So let me know if anyone knows where to find them (I keep checking on eBay).

Till next time…

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I remember driving the five minutes to the grocery store one grey day in Rhode Island, and while pulling into the parking lot, hearing the opening to Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. I pulled into a parking spot in the back of the lot, and listened. By the end of the song, I was crying.

The subtlety and maturity of the songs they wrote has resulted in songs that have survived excessive airplay and changing times. Even Levon still makes me wistful and sad; how many other songs from that era that got that much play can do that?

I have to admit, though, that my favorite of their songs has to be Roy Rogers. Sitting humbly in the middle of that magnificent sweeping double album, this song says more about strength in isolation, the oppression of normalcy, and the loneliness inherent in love, than anything I’ve ever heard.

Good to know there are this many fans out there.

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Thanks, everyone! Those are wonderful examples. (And Stoid, it wouldn’t do for me to meet Bernie… I’d have him puking all over my shoes! :))

Here’s another one:

Ticking — A downright majestic piano-only interpretation that simply will take your breath away. It is difficult to imagine Elton’s nubby little fingers executing this incredible, technically foreboding piece. If you can play even a simplified version of it without getting wrist cramps, then I greatly admire your abilities.

In this song, the music is the lyrics. They merge into one entity.

And another:

Talking Old Soldiers — C harmonic minor is my favorite key, and this piece milks it for every sultry, dirgy, pit-of-dispair attribute that it’s got. I love this song. See whether you can read the following without hearing how Elton sang it: “You got your memmmmmm-o-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies”. :smiley:

Finally, thank you for mentioning Empty Garden, We All Fall In Love Sometimes, and Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters — three extraordinary masterpieces. Episode at Heinton and Great Discovery … oh, my! That album was what prompted Paul Buckmaster to gush, “Elton’s music is an inspiration! A turn on!” ('Course, Buckmaster himself was no small part of the reason why!)