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Elton John

The Breakthrough Second Album

By Sean CallaghanPublished 6 years ago Updated 9 months ago 7 min read
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For all intents and purposes, the eponymous Elton John album released in 1970 was an overnight smash debut that propelled the future "rocket man" to the top of the charts, and for the first half of the decade to the top of both the concert attendance and Top 40 lists.

Okay, it technically wasn't his debut. But his first album, Empty Sky, was not released in the US until 1975 and was a fairly minor item in John's native UK as well. While he never really disparaged Empty Sky, he speaks fondly only of one song—"Skyline Pigeon," which he would later re-cut and release as the flip side of the song Daniel in 1973. (The song would later get a second life after Elton sang it at the funeral of AIDS victim Ryan White, which is a story for a different time.)

Listening to Elton John was a revelation. It immediately became clear, right from the immortal opening track, that the skills of John and lyricist Bernie Taupin had grown by leaps and bounds from their tentative debut.

What more can be said about “Your Song,” a song that Elton still plays at every concert and one that he contends he never tires of. The song starts with a timeless "riff" from Elton’s piano with soft guitar plucking in the background; a lush string arrangement by Paul Buckmaster perfectly heightens the emotion of the song, and it's propelled by three guitars, bass and drums in a way that is sweet throughout but never lags. Taupin's lyric is sufficiently indirect yet touching, making it an identifiable love song for anyone who has loved or wants to love.

By the time John confesses that he doesn't know whether his love's eyes are green or blue, the AM audience was in thrall and they made the song a Top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic, with the album selling well to this day. Oddly enough, the only people skeptical of "Your Song" as a single seemed to be Elton and his record company. The song in fact was actually released as the b-side of the album's second single. The b-side situation quickly reversed by radio music directors and disk jockeys—at the time the most influential people in what Joni Mitchell once called "the starmaker machinery of the popular song."

To be fair to those who saw "Your Song" as a b-side, the song had been released in March 1970 by American band Three Dog Night; it met with little success. But six months later, when radio played Elton's version rather than its a-side, the single proved an unstoppable force. No less an Elton hero than George Harrison, himself about to release the first solo Beatle chart-topper My Sweet Lord, called John out of the blue to congratulate him; John Lennon would add public praise for the song.

The world was truly at Elton's feet after the chart ride taken by "Your Song." By the end of the year, Elton would make a triumphant trip through America, including a triumphant gig at LA's Troubadour and a New York City radio concert later immortalized as the album 11-17-70.

So the song was a beginning of a career, and just the beginning of an impressive album. The next track, "I Need You to Turn To", is truly one of the underrated gems of the Elton catalogue. Elton plays the primary melody on a harpsichord—which needless to say has been highly underused as a featured instrument in the rock field. (The Beatles used a harpsichord sound, but not an actual harpsichord on the song "In My Life"—the effect was achieved by having George Martin play a piano solo and manipulate the tape to achieve the effect that is heard on record.) Underscored again by a Paul Buckmaster string arrangement and even featuring harpist Skaila Kanga, "I Need You to Turn To" was a tender love song—a complete success. But those listening to the album as a first exposure to John must have wondered what they'd gotten into—they'd heard that Elton rocked live, but so far this seemed almost like an album of pop chamber music.

The next song shakes them out of the reverie "Take Me to the Pilot" is the first true rock song of Elton’s career, which is probably how it earned the honor of being the a-side of the first single that was ultimately overcome by the b-side monster "Your Song." To say the least, the lyrics are far less direct than the two songs that precede it. Neither Bernie nor Elton can explain what the lyrics mean; since Taupin wrote them, we can only assume he doesn't want to explain. But to this day, John contends he has never figured out what the hell the song is about. It still gets a decent amount of play at Elton concerts, however.

The next song is not a concert evergreen. "No Shoestrings on Louise" owed a lot to the countryish experiments the Rolling Stones had been playing with on Beggar's Banquet, Sticky Fingers and especially Let It Bleed. Some have even classified it as a parody of those experiments. While Elton did a serviceable Jagger here, the song was okay at best. Back when you had to move a needle rather than hit a forward button (a time many of us are revisiting), album listeners had no reason to skip "Shoestrings." However, it's not a centerpiece of the Elton catalog, though in some ways it does preview the musical direction of the next Elton LP, which is not surprising given that the albums were recorded at the same sessions, more on which later.

Side one of the LP (if you have the LP) closes with another slice of chamber pop. First Episode at Hienton exemplifies Bernie’s storytelling style at its finest. Driven by Elton’s piano and Caleb Quaye’s acoustic guitar and featuring a haunting Moog synthesizer performance by Diana Lewis, John sings an imagery-filled account of young love in the "snow hills of Hienton," which from all evidence is a fictional town in the mind of a young Taupin.

Next comes "Sixty Years On," which opens with a swelling of strings that sounds almost like a swarm of buzzing bees melting into a beautiful Spanish guitar melody played by Colin Green. Buckmaster’s string arrangement once again brings magic to this track, underlying the angst felt by the narrator about living "Sixty Years On."

A little trivia here: the first single from Elton John was not "Your Song," but "Border Song," a gospel-influenced piano tune featuring a full chorus of backing singers. While it was not the song that cracked the Top 40 for Elton, it is a tremendous song that was quickly covered by Aretha Franklin, which John cites to this day as one of his biggest thrills.

Paul Buckmaster’s strings set the stage for “The Greatest Discovery," the most sentimental cut on an album filled with sentimentality. The lyrics relate the story of the birth of a younger brother as told from the point of view of an older brother. Bernie masterfully puts us behind the eyes of a child during this song, making it a beautiful and identifiable work even if you never had a younger brother.

Picking up the tempo considerably, "The Cage" is a straightforward rocker with dark lyrics that seem to fit well with those of "Take Me to the Pilot," but certainly not the love songs or story songs. The album concludes with the epic “The King Must Die” once again showing Bernie Taupin’s mastery of lyrical storytelling, this time in service of a story of royal succession and its inherent ugliness.

All in all this album, the first in a long series of spectacularly successful albums produced by Gus Dudgeon, holds up as well as any of the early Elton albums even as its contents are somewhat eclipsed by its most famous song.

The album is also often overshadowed by its successor Tumbleweed Connection, an album actually recorded simultaneously with Elton John and released the same year, but with a very different mix of songs and no radio hits. Whereas the ballads-to-rocker ratio on Elton John would arguably be about 7-3, Tumbleweed has the exact opposite. It also, as mentioned in the discussion of "No Shoestrings On Louise," has more of a country feel than Elton John, and where Bernie's Elton John lyrics address a real and imagined European experience, the songs saved for Tumbleweed reflect Taupin's passion for the American West and Elton's love of what would now be called Americana, reflected in his passion for the music of The Band.

But make no mistake: Elton John and more specifically "Your Song," made the legend.

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About the Creator

Sean Callaghan

Neurodivergent, Writer, Drummer, Singer, Percussionist, Star Wars and Disney Devotee.

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