Right away, “Your Starter For…” is an antiseptic instrumental written by occasional band member Caleb Quaye, and unfortunately provides an incongruous setup for the lengthy introduction to “Tonight”, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra (and recorded at Abbey Road Studios, of course). All that’s missing is a candelabra. When Elton’s vocal finally comes in, you wish he hadn’t taken so long. As a movie soundtrack it might work, but there’s nothing like the payoff of “Love Lies Bleeding” after “Funeral For A Friend”. (We’ll try to keep those comparisons to a minimum.) “One Horse Town” manages to combine rock and disco in a well-worn theme for this lyricist, except that Ray Cooper’s vibraphone plonks are mixed as loud as the synthesized burps. Ray similarly dominates the next track, but as “Chameleon” recalls earlier, simpler triumphs, it’s a keeper. Finally.
Side two continues the flirting with American music, and not successfully. “Boogie Pilgrim” has something of a New Orleans funk strut, with lots of interjections by the Rev. James Cleveland for some reason. “Cage The Songbird” tries to do for Edith Piaf what “Candle In The Wind” did for Marilyn Monroe, but the “Daniel” flutes and country backing don’t fit. David Crosby and Graham Nash nicely blend their voices, though, as they did consistently when asked. “Crazy Water” is a too-long retread of “Philadelphia Freedom”, but lose the Brecker Brothers horn section and David Sanborn sax solo, and “Shoulder Holster” might fit on Tumbleweed Connection, though it wouldn’t be a highlight.
A true classic, and a heartbreaking one, emerges in “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”; our only quibble is the accordion. The mood is dispelled by “Out Of The Blue”, a six-minute instrumental sporting impeccably synchronized guitar and yes, vibes. The mild island feel of “Between Twenty And Seventeen” does not match a lyric about how the music business wrecked Bernie’s marriage to a certain tiny dancer. “The Wide Eyed And Laughing” gets points for being different, as it features several sitars as well as Crosby and Nash again. It also took five people to write. Reflecting the down start to the side, “Someone’s Final Song” is a sad elegy featuring just Elton, his piano, sympathetic keyboard touches from James Newton Howard, and mild backing voices.
The vibe continues on “Where’s The Shoorah?”, with a similar stark performance except for the choir led by Rev. Cleveland. (We looked it up, and while a shoorah has connotations both Hebrew and hoodoo, chances are Bernie just liked how it sounded.) The title basically sums up “If There’s A God In Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?)”, more fist-shaking about social ills. Despite the musical quality of this last run of tracks, “Idol” inadvertently identifies the main problem with the album (“he's not the same no more/And I have to say that I like the way his music sounded before”) over a lounge backing that must have meant a lot to George Michael. “Theme From A Non-Existent TV Series” is as badly placed as the other instrumentals, and “Bite Your Lip (Get Up And Dance!)” tries to provide a grand finale along the lines of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”, not realizing they’d nailed it the first time.
As well produced as it is, and there are high points, Blue Moves is still a mess, if not quite the Self Portrait to his Blonde On Blonde. Even if it were shaved down to two sides, it would still be subpar. Unfortunately, this is approximately where Elton, and his golden touch, went off the rails. (Because of the varying accepted capacity of compact discs in their early days, the album’s debut in the format was incomplete, cutting four tracks almost at random in order to fit on a single CD. It only took 20 years for a fully restored two-CD program, split between the original two LPs.)
Elton John Blue Moves (1976)—2
Much as “Captain Fantastic..” was a reaction to “Caribou”, so this one was a reaction to “..Westies”. Having recorded the most straightforward rock and roll album of his career, Elton was evidently eager to test the real capabilities of his band and further experimentation with songwriting. This ran headlong into Bernie’s depression over his wife leaving him for the bass player (whom Elton decided not to fire. AWWKwarrd..). That would affect the mood of the songs, whether the lyrics directly referred to the breakup or not. They still tried to have some fun, too, but the “fun” is a lot less convincing than it used to be.
ReplyDeleteLet’s play the usual game of trying to reduce this to a good single album. First, I would remove most of the totally depressing, self-pitying lounge ballads – “Idol”, “Chameleon” (too long), "Someone’s Final Song”, and yes, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word". I’ve never liked that one – way too melodramatic and weepy. I’d also toss out the overlong disco/funk exercises “Crazy Water” and “Boogie Pilgrim”. The former has decent lyrics, but the subject had already been dealt with more appropriately on Renaissance’s “At the Harbour”. The latter is just plain dumb. This time, the Rev. Cleveland’s choir can’t save the song.
Already, we’re down to under an hour. Going to the middle tier, we have the three instrumentals. Yes, I KNOW they’re filler, but I love them anyway. They’re so catchy. “Out of the Blue” didn’t really need to be six minutes long, but the band is so tight, so I don’t get bored. It’s interesting that Bernie is co-credited for music on two of these. Did he just hum or whistle melodies to which Elton added chords? “Between Seventeen and Twenty” and "If There's a God in Heaven (What's He Waiting For?)" are odd songs. The backing tracks are light soul, like “Philadelphia Freedom”. This contrasts with the lyrics. The latter is an existential lament, years before XTC’s “Dear God”. The former, on the other, is a lament to Bernie’s wife, although I couldn’t figure out what it meant at the time. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that Bernie and Maxine were 20 and 17 when they got married. That alone doomed the marriage at the start.
In any case, I’d keep everything else. “Tonight” is very much a classic throwback to “Madman Across the Water”. Elton’s voice channels Bernie’s despair perfectly. “One Horse Town” sounds like they took the jamming coda from the last album’s “Medley” and turned it into a full song. While Bernie previously treated rural life with a bit of contempt, here he sounds frustrated and trapped. Again, Elton’s vocals are convincing.
“Cage the Songbird” may be a bit of a retread of “Candle in the Wind”. Nonetheless, the song is fragile and touching. “Shoulder Holster” doesn’t remind me of “TC”. On the contrary, I think it’s a contemporary tale, sort of like Billy Joel’s “Stop in Nevada”. Then there’s “The Wide Eyed and Laughing”, the most experimental track EJ had recorded up to this point. Psychedelic music and lyrics like this in 1976? Yet, it doesn’t sound dated. I’m going to guess it’s about Maxine again (“I never condemned you/I only controlled you.”), but Bernie couldn’t have been more oblique.
I have an idea what (or who) the shoorah is (“She’s sinful and spiteful/She’s all girl, woman and mother” – make three guesses), but it doesn’t matter. Unlike the other ballads, the choir reinforces the loss and mourning of the song. Finally, we go to the opposite extreme with the rock/disco hybrid of “Bite Your Lip”. The lyrics are VERY silly, but the band cooks, the gospel choir kicks in with enthusiasm. Finally, the strings kick in. There’s not one bit of boredom over the seven minutes.
The album has its flaws. Its dour mood on some tracks and disco influences on others marked the beginning of a period where a lot of people were put off Elton. Still, there’s enough worthwhile for new fans to dig into, but not before exploring the earlier stuff. Oh, and please ignore another rather ugly photo of Elton on the inner sleeve.