Tag Archives: Elton John

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Song of the Day #1,477: ‘The King Must Die’ – Elton John

I’d like to be a bigger Elton John fan. Silly thing to say, I know, because there’s certainly nothing holding me back from further exploring his catalog — nothing but the lack of time and the presence of hundreds of other artists vying for it.

John is one of those artists, like Prince, who has released so many albums that I can’t fathom being the kind of fan who owns everything he’s done. Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello are similarly prolific, but I started following them long ago and added many of their albums as they were released. With John I’d be starting almost from scratch.

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Song of the Day #1,302: ‘Goodbye’ – Elton John

When a random dip into 10,515 songs turns up a track from Madman Across the Water, arguably Elton John’s best album, something is going right.

In addition to the apocalyptically awesome title track, this album features ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘Levon’ — that trio alone qualifies it for the pantheon. I’ll admit I’m not as familiar with the other six tracks, including today’s SOTD.

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Song of the Day #822: ‘Levon’ – Elton John

Top Ten Male Vocalists – #3 – Elton John

Elton John has what I consider the quintessential pop music voice. It’s not distinctive in any way I can articulate but it is as integral a part of his music as the piano, the strings, Bernie Taupin’s lyrics, any of it. I wouldn’t want to hear an Elton John song sung by anybody else (OK, maybe Ewan McGregor).

I suppose a case could be made that the voice is almost irrelevant when you’re talking about songs as good as ‘Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,’ ‘Your Song,’ ‘Tiny Dancer,’ today’s track and countless others. And it’s not as if Elton is known for singing covers. But still, I contend that his voice plays a tremendous role in his appeal, enough to launch him this high on my top ten.

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Song of the Day #696: ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’ – George Michael and Elton John

[This week’s guest blogger, Amy, continues her exploration of favorite cover songs.]

While The Police and Joni Mitchell may have inspired two fabulous covers, it’s difficult to think of an artist who has inspired more great covers than Elton John. The album Two Rooms, released in 1991, is devoted to Elton John covers performed by the likes of Eric Clapton, Sinead O’Connor, The Who, Kate Bush, Sting and Tina Turner (we’ll overlook that Wilson Phillips is also a featured artist).

However, the two EJ covers I love the most were not featured on that album.

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Song of the Day #156: ‘Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters’ – Elton John

eltonI’ve always been fascinated by the writing arrangement between Elton John and Bernie Taupin, wherein John writes all the music and Taupin all the lyrics. It’s hard to imagine the lyrics of ‘Your Song’ or ‘Daniel’ being written completely unaware of the melodies that would one day support them. And it’s equally hard to imagine the music of ‘Levon’ or Tiny Dancer’ being written with no clue what words would fill their spaces.

But I suppose one of those cases must be true, because theirs is not an active collaboration. Their process takes place (as one tribute album alluded to in its title) in two rooms.

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