Elton John (album)

Untitled

Elton John is the artist's eponymous second album.

Because Empty Sky didn't see an American release, this record was many people's first exposure to his music. Compared to the ambitious Empty Sky, the follow-up features the catchy melodies and intelligent lyrics that John and lyricist Bernie Taupin became known for. Prime among these was "Your Song", which became one of their signature efforts.

Music

"Your Song" features a simple sentiment with which almost anyone can identify. A piano and voice demo features this in its barest form, with John practically whispering into the microphone and his gentle piano chords clearly providing the framework for the orchestral arrangement to come.

The next song, "I Need You to Turn To," starts with a voice and harpsichord before the strings quietly intercede. It isn't just the harpsichord that gives the song an ancient aura, or the harp played by Skaila Kanga, but also the melody, which could have fit into the "Greensleeves"-filled repertoire of a fourteenth-century troubadour.

The third song, "Take Me to the Pilot," starts like the first two, with John's voice and piano, but even before the orchestra's jubilant entrance the piece hurtles in a different direction. John's vocal here is assertive and strong. The piano seems to herald a raucous, African-American gospel number. By the song's end, the orchestra has completed a rocking, rolling adventure, punctuated by John's percussive piano and supplemented by percolating rhythm guitar, Caleb Quaye's wailing lead guitar, and spirited backing vocals by six singers, including Roger Cook and singer-songwriter Lesley Duncan.

"No Shoe Strings on Louise" is a next, down-home country-and-western slice of life and another Rolling Stones tribute. John would later joke that every album of his had to have a Stones tribute song on it, a pledge that did not last long. If the song is Stones-like, it is in John's growling faux-Southern vocal, which resembles the one Mick Jagger sometimes adopted. But the brash, ringing piano chords are unmistakably John's, conjuring up images of the manipulative "Loo-ays" striding confidently down the dusty main street of town, searching for male prey. Quaye's twangy guitar completes the picture of a dry, gray Western scene.

The next song, "First Episode at Hienton," was a leftover from 1968. In it, a young man looks wistfully back on his schoolboy romance with "Valerie," who has since grown up and moved away, The "first episode" refers to the adolescent main character's first intimate experience with Valerie ("For your thighs were the cushions/of my love and yours for each other"). Bernie's childhood memories dominate, as he links remembrances of roaming the hills or running through castle ruins with fantasies of a fictional love. John's melody style changes shape in response to the lyrics, which meander in a free-form style.

Side two commences with "Sixty Years On," the first of his and Taupin's songs about the loneliness of old age to be recorded in 1970 (along with "Talking Old Soldiers" on Tumbleweed Connection, recorded later that year). The song depicts a veteran who has gotten little for his role in an unnamed war. His dog is dead, he sees nothing in his future, and he is losing his faith. John's touching piano and voice demo of the song is translated on the album into a vehicle for a harp- and cello-dominated orchestra, vividly portraying the veteran's growing isolation. The harp mimics the demo's broken piano chords; the orchestra follows the demo's dark, brooding note clusters. The innocent timbre of Elton's boyish voice lends the story even more poignancy.

"Sixty Years On" is followed by a ballad, "Border Song." It contains more than a little gospel: witness Aretha Franklin's cover of the song, an American Top 40 hit early the following year (and the first time a star recorded one of their songs). Typically, Taupin claims that "Border Song" wasn't about anything in particular. John later posited that the song was about the alienation Bernie felt in and about London at the time ("Brand of people who ain't my kind"), and his desire to visit home as often as he could. For those unfamiliar with Bernie's disaffection with British urban life in the late 1960s, "Border Song" seems to be a homily against bigotry, even before one reaches the last verse, penned by John himself. (Taupin acknowledged that "the great thing about Elton's last verse was that he tried to put it all into perspective.") Although John's words lack imagination, they do not lack in longing for an age of better race relations: "Holy Moses let us live in peace/let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease/there's a man over there, what's his color I don't care/he's my brother let us live in peace." These words are far from the banality of his early lyrics for "Come Back Baby" and "Mr. Frantic." The song's plaintive melody has the aura of a spiritual, like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." A choir sings during an instrumental break led by John's piano, which is itself accompanied by weeping strings that build to a climax, and contributes to its otherworldly feeling.

The next song, "The Greatest Discovery," tells of the birth of Taupin's younger brother. With its lullaby lilt and sweet piano, the melody sensitively portrays Taupin's boyhood "discovery" of his household's newest member.

The album's imagery shifts to the surreal with "The Cage." John later claimed that the lyrics, like those for "Take Me to the Pilot," were inspired by the science fiction Taupin was reading, but this isn't obvious. Taupin's "cage" represents emotional captivity (I've never loved in a cage/or talked to a friend or just waved") formed by an existence in which dishonest sentiments prevail ("Watched you kiss your old daddy with passion and tell dirty jokes as he died"). Like "Take Me to the Pilot," the music begins with John's up-tempo piano, a percussive feast that suggests Aretha Franklin's "Think." John snarls his vocals, conveying a dungeon of human nature that is the antithesis of the previous song's family values. The symphonic-sounding piano solo in John's demo becomes a moog synthesizer moment in the studio for Diana Lewis, done is French horn style, and furthering the song's surrealism.

In the album's closer, "The King Must Die", the surrealism continues with this song, which some have speculated refers to Martin Luther King, an idea Taupin rejected. But even if the song was not inspired by contemporary events, it speaks to assassination plots dating back to Caesar's time: "And sooner or later,/everybody's kingdom must end/and I'm so afraid your courtiers,/cannot be called best friends." This tale of secret plans, trust betrayed, and dead dreams becomes for disturbing as Elton's sparse collection of treble piano notes, accented by an ominous intercession of piano bass, seems to warn the listener, showing how completely alone the threatened monarch is among his assumed friends. At the end of the song, John nearly yells the words "The king is dead" and declares "Long live the King" to a thunderous piano conclusion.

Included on the 1996 digitally-remastered re-release are three bonus tracks : "Bad Side of the Moon", the original 1970 version of "Grey Seal" (this song was re-recorded for the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album), and "Rock and Roll Madonna". All three of these songs were previously released only as singles, although they were also released on the Lady Samantha compilation album.

Track listing

All songs by John/Taupin.

1. "Your Song" – 4:05
2. "I Need You to Turn To" – 2:33
3. "Take Me to the Pilot" – 3:47
4. "No Shoe Strings on Louise" – 3:32
5. "First Episode at Hienton" – 4:49
6. "Sixty Years On" – 4:36
7. "Border Song" – 3:22
8. "The Greatest Discovery" – 4:13
9. "The Cage" – 3:31
10. "The King Must Die" – 5:23

Bonus tracks (1996 CD reissue)

1. "Bad Side of the Moon" – 3:15
2. "Grey Seal (original version)" – 3:36
3. "Rock 'n' Roll Madonna" – 4:52

Personnel

• Elton John - piano, harpsichord, keyboard, vocals
• Madeline Bell - vocals, background vocals
• Paul Buckmaster - cello
• Tony Burrows - vocals, background vocals
• Frank Clark - acoustic guitar, bass, guitar
• Roger Cook - vocals, background vocals
• Terry Cox - drums
• Brian Dee - organ, keyboard
• Lesley Duncan - vocals, background vocals
• Kay Garner - vocals, background vocals
• Colin Green - guitar, Spanish guitar
• Roland Harker - guitar
• Tony Hazzard - vocals, background vocals
• Clive Hicks - acoustic guitar, guitar, rhythm guitar, 12 string guitar
• Les Hurdie - bass
• Skaila Kanga - harp
• David Katz - violin
• Diana Lewis - synthesizer, Moog synthesizer
• Dennis Lopez - percussion
• Barbara Moore - vocals, choir, chorus
• Barry Morgan - drums
• Tex Navarra - percussion
• Alan Parker - rhythm guitar
• Caleb Quaye - guitar
• Dave Richmond - bass
• Alan Weighall - bass

Production

• Producer: Gus Dudgeon
• Engineer: Robin Geoffrey Cable
• Editing: Gus Skinas
• Remastering: Tony Cousins
• Digital transfers: Ricky Graham
• Surround sound: Greg Penny
• Lyricist: Bernie Taupin
• Arranger: Paul Buckmaster
• Orchestra contractor: David Katz
• Art direction: David Larkham
• Liner notes: Gus Dudgeon, John Tobler

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1970	UK album chart	5
1971	US Billboard Pop Albums	4

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1970	Border Song	US Billboard Pop Singles	92
1971	Your Song	UK Singles Chart	7
1971	Your Song	US Billboard Pop Singles	8