For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Jim is continuing his trip around the band’s instruments, by inviting us to play a song that features keyboards. You can read what he says about this in his post here. This wasn’t a hard one for me to decide on: the only problem was choosing just one song! Having decided against Russ Conway, Mrs Mills or Liberace, I set on the guy who has made his piano an integral part of his music for well over fifty years. Yes, it is Reginald Kenneth Dwight himself, aka Sir Elton Hercules John. Elton is for me, like Rod Stewart, someone whose early albums were great but his later ones less so, and it is because of that I am choosing to play one of his early songs:
I’m sure you don’t really need to see the lyrics to be able to sing along with that, but as this is SLS I’m playing by the ‘rules’:
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad
Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums
But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you, and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly
Lying here with no one near
Only you, and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly
Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you, and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly
Lying here with no one near
Only you, and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly
Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today
Tiny Dancer is still for me one of Elton’s most beautiful songs – I love it today as much as I did when I first heard it. It was the opening track on Elton John’s fourth album, Madman Across The Water, which was released in November 1971. He was going through a poor patch with the UK singles charts at that time and the album seemed to follow that pattern, only getting to #41 here, but it did much better across the pond, peaking at #8 in the US. The song was issued as a US single in February 1972, peaking at #41, but it wasn’t released in the UK, though it did finally make a rather belated appearance in 2015, the age of digital singles, at #70. It is, however, one of his more popular songs in live performances, and I still think it is beautiful regardless of chart positions! The lyrics were, as always, written by Bernie Taupin and were inspired by his first visit to the US in 1970: they were intended to capture the spirit of California, where he found the women he met contrasted with those whom he had known in his UK homeland. He stated in a 1973 interview in Rolling Stone that the song is about Maxine Feibelman, his wife at the time. In 2019, Feibelman said, “I knew it was about me. I had been into ballet as a little girl and sewed patches on Elton’s jackets and jeans,” referring to the song’s description of a “seamstress for the band.” The video is a good deal more recent, and was made in 2017 as one of a set of three marking Elton and Bernie’s Californian influences in their songwriting. It depicts life for the ‘L.A. Lady’ of the song from a dozen different perspectives, and I think it is a wonderful accompaniment to a superb song.
I usually give you two or three songs for these posts but today I’m concentrating on just this one. But I have another clip for you. If you know the movie Almost Famous you will recognise this:
The movie was released in September 2000 and it tells the story of a wannabe music journalist, William Miller, played by Patrick Fugit, who gets to tour with a fictional band, Stillwater, whose leader is played by Billy Crudup. It was written and directed by Cameron Crowe, who drew on his own experience of wanting to be a journo as the basis for the plot. Much of the film is about William’s relationship with the band and a young groupie, Penny Lane, who is played by Kate Hudson in her breakout role. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but I’ll just say Almost Famous tells its story well, has an incredible cast and an amazing soundtrack, which won a Grammy in 2001. It is one of my favourite movies and if you haven’t seen it I can highly recommend it.
I said I was playing just the one song today, but on reflection I’m adding in a second which has the backing track of the other of Elton’s songs which was used in the movie. The clip ends rather abruptly, but you’ll get the idea:
Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters is another of Elton’s gems, another that I have loved for so many years, and it was a good fit for the scene. It is from his Honky Chateau album (May 1972) if you want to seek it out.
So, one song became one plus one, and then two, but I think they are worth it. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes 🎶
