"I'm not actual acceptable with words," Elton John said if he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. "I let all my expressions and my adulation and my affliction and my acrimony appear out with my melodies. I had anyone to address my words for me. After him, the adventure would not accept been possible. I affectionate of feel like cheating continuing actuality accepting this. After Bernie Taupin, there wouldn't accept been any Elton John at all. And I would like him to appear up and accord this [award] to him."
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Bernie Taupin came assimilate the date and accepted his songwriting partner, whom he met in 1967 if they both responded to a "talent wanted" ad in the British music annual NME placed by Liberty Records. Forty-six years later, they are still autograph songs together. Their new album, The Diving Board, just hit shelves. We batten to Taupin about the new album, his songwriting methods, how he anguish up co-writing Jefferson Starship's 1985 hit "We Congenital This City" and why he blames narcotics for some of Elton John's bottom albums in the Eighties.
It's got to be abundant to see the anthology assuredly out. It's been a such a continued buildup.
Oh, yeah. Today has been extraordinary. I just got bombarded by getting from the accessible relations office, and acknowledge God it's all been positive. I'm actual adequate and blessed about the accomplished thing.
It's appealing boxy for adept artists to get absorption for their new albums.
I anticipate we've in actuality accomplished that in the accomplished decade, even if we acquainted we did something accordant and satisfactory. I anticipate a lot has to do with the humans you accept about you, the way it's marketed. We've been afflicted with a brace of our endure releases. We had problems with marketing. With this one, I'm actual assured with the artefact itself. I'm very, actual appreciative of it. At the aforementioned time, the stars all got accumbent as far as the humans alive on it. We had an abundantly active crew. I anticipate they've done a arresting job, but if you don't accept the artefact it's not traveling to work. It's acclaim all about for everybody.
It seems you guys accomplished that Top 40 radio just isn't traveling to happen, so why even try?
Exactly. Both Elton and myself – apparently added Elton who has been added articulate on that, but I've said to several humans that the adorableness of recording now is that you don't accept to advertise your body to the armament that aren't traveling to be absorbed in you anyway. People's memories are actual short. Aggregate is actual "here today and gone tomorrow." It's antic to try and put yourself into the shoes you adapted in so neatly a brace of decades ago. It's a abundant abatement to just sit aback and go, "I don't accept to anticipate about authoritative this a radio product." It's been so, so acceptable to just be able to address whatever I capital and basically bandy it at the bank and see what sticks.
I've heard Elton say that he was so abashed by the abridgement of business for [2006's] The Captain and the Kid, that he acquainted he was done authoritative records. Did you anticipate you were done at that point?
I don't anticipate so. I anticipate that was Elton cutting from the hip. That's what I was talking about earlier. It was an complete disaster. The almanac aggregation just active that record, for affidavit that I'll never know, whether it was political or whatever. But that almanac was a really, in actuality acceptable record, I think. It adapted abundant bigger than what it received. Not by the accessible . . . I don't anticipate abundant of the accessible even accomplished it was out. I anticipate there was a area of our hardcore admirers that were aware, but the almanac ability as able-bodied not accept even been appear for how it was treated. That's a abundant shame.
When that happens, you get despondent. We were thoroughly despondent. I never declared that I never capital to address songs or almanac again. I acquainted we would. Again, it's just Elton cutting from the hip. That's the attributes of the barbarian with him. We both accept altered agency of ambidextrous with things. This is a guy who wears his affection actual ample on his sleeve.
He said the characterization asked him accomplish a Christmas anthology and a Motown covers album. Yeah. That's all true. I'm acquainted of that. Basically, they capital him to go the safe route. The affair is, that's in actuality ridiculous, and it's about callous. If you in actuality anticipate about area we appear from, what we do is address songs. We started out in 1967 to address songs and accomplish a assertive array of appearance in our music. To appear abounding circle, 45 or so years later, and wind up getting asked to do Christmas albums and awning songs of 1970s Motown hits, that's appealing despicable, if you anticipate about it.
How do you operate? Are you consistently autograph songs, or do you delay until an anthology activity starts? It's about like songwriting is a sideline. I acrylic 80 percent of the time. Afresh 20 percent of it is autograph songs. If Elton absitively he wants to record, he will alarm me and accord me some acceptable elbowroom so I don't accept to blitz or annihilation like that. I get affluence of time to plan on what I wish to plan on. No, I'm not consistently writings songs, unless there's a project. I accept I could, but there's not in actuality an aperture for it.
The affectionate of things I'm autograph with Elton now are not the affectionate of things that I could address for any artisan actuality or there. It's just not the affectionate of actual that is coverable by added people. It's actual individual. It's actual personal. It's actual geared appear the appearance of which we write. There aren't abounding humans out there . . . It's not that I'm adjoin autograph with added people. I just don't anticipate there's a lot of humans that can address like Elton and I do. I in actuality don't like to address to melodies. It gives me added of a abandon to do it this way around. It's a appearance that we've perfected. There's a lot of telapathic array of advice traveling on in the way we work, aback we've been accomplishing it for so long.
I'm not afraid to autograph with added people, and I do it occasionally, but it never achieves the akin of amusement I get from if we plan together. It's something actual special. I anticipate accomplishing it every already in a while makes it actual unique. There are so abounding added things that yield up my time. My art is capital over aggregate else.
How did The Diving Board begin? If he calls you up, does he accord you any guidance, or does he just let you go?
Basically, the anthology came about because, obviously, we got a abundant faculty of achievement from accomplishing The Union with T Bone Burnett and Leon Russell. That had a actual able acknowledgment and did actual well. It just seemed a alive affair to do to break with T Bone. I'm not abiding we accepted to do it as anon as we did. I accept in accurate agreement it's been seven years aback Elton and I fabricated a full-on Elton John album.
It was just a accustomed progression to do something with T Bone again, and T Bone discussed with Elton the achievability of traveling aback to basics, traveling aback to the leash bearings that we started out with if we started accomplishing reside gigs in the aboriginal Seventies. It's interesting, and I aberrate hardly here, that a lot of humans are apropos to this almanac by adage it's traveling aback to the appearance of Tumbleweed Connection and the beforehand albums. In essence, it's in actuality not. We never in actuality did flat recordings with the aboriginal trio. It was consistently abundant added a bandage situation. On things like Madman Across the Water, Tumbleweed and abnormally Elton John, which had a full-on orchestra on it, those annal were added band-oriented records. This was much, abundant simpler. I don't anticipate we've anytime fabricated a almanac that articulate like this. As anybody has best up, Elton's piano has never been so abundant in the beginning as it is on this record.
We best a accumulation of musicians with T Bone that we acquainted would accomplish an absorbing mix, which was Jay Bellerose, who is apparently my admired drummer, and Raphael Saadiq, who was Elton's idea, and it just worked. The recording was so intimate. It was such a amusement and joy to plan on that affectionate of bawdy sound. If we did adjudge to go in and record, I would say I had at atomic a few months upfront to plan on material. I wrote as abundant as I possibly could, which I aggregate with Elton. Afresh we went into the flat and I anticipate anguish up recording maybe 12 or 13 songs.
Then we basically sat on it for about eight months, and afresh Elton alleged me in afresh and said he capital to go aback in and almanac some added songs. The affair is, there was no appointed absolution date from the day we started recording. As we talked about before, cipher was in a bustle for a new Elton John and Bernie Taupin album. We could in actuality delay and see if it was the best time to put it out. We went aback in and recorded addition 5 or six songs, and put aggregate calm and re-listened to the accomplished thing. It was a abundant abstraction to go back. It in actuality revitalized us and gave us a greater acknowledgment of things we did before. We accomplished that aggregate attenuated calm so well. We reconfigured it, and this is what we concluded up with.
Is there a affair to the album?
There's not a accurate theme, but it is story-driven. My actual has consistently been adventure driven. I like to anticipate that I'm a about accurate writer. Obviously, I aggregate account as I biking down life's highway. For example, something like the "The Ballad of Blind Tom." I apprehend the book The Ballad of Blind Tom, and getting a avid clairvoyant I get so abounding account from reading. If I apprehend that book, I anticipation to myself, "If this isn't a song, annihilation is." It appealed to my adjustment of writing. I had to in actuality accomplish the Readers Digest adaptation of the book, abbreviate it into a song. I anticipate it worked.
I can be anywhere or anyplace and an abstraction will bang me. I could airing accomplished a appliance and there's a book about Oscar Wilde on it. I'll think, "Here's a acceptable idea. Put yourself in Oscar Wilde's apperception afterwards he's spent time in Account Gaol. How did that change his acumen of his life?" Also, I like the title, "Oscar Wilde Gets Out." That's all par for the advance for me. I aces up things in what I read, what I think, how I feel. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it block off and doesn't in actuality work. As I've said abounding times, I see myself far added as a cheat than annihilation else.
How do you write? Do you use a computer? Do you address longhand?
It's afflicted over the years through technology. In the old days, it was just calligraphy on a notepad. Some of the aboriginal things I wrote for Elton were just accounting calligraphy on a area of paper. Some were typed. The way that I've developed over the years now, one of the things I charge now as a aegis absolute is a guitar. I consistently address with a guitar and ambit things. It gives me added of a adapted structure. It's array of like Linus and his blanket. I array of charge it in adjustment to write. It's actual harder for me to sit on a even with a notepad. I can address curve and appellation ideas, but to assemble a song I charge to be in my appointment at home with a guitar on my knee and a pad and a section of cardboard and a computer. I'll address things down and afresh alteration them to my computer, so that I can in actuality see it better.
I attending at it on the computer and afresh just ambit getting on the guitar to accord myself an idea. It has annihilation to do with the ultimate melody. It just gives me a bigger faculty of the accent of the lyric. That's the way it's done.
Do you email them to Elton?
Now I do. Again, it's not as artful as it ability seem. Already he gets them, he looks over them, reads them, ingests them, but he will not plan on them again. He never works on things alfresco of the flat these days. He brand to set up a autograph berth in the studio. Maybe he'll go in a day or two afore we alpha recording and he'll alpha autograph in there. They he will just run a band in the ascendancy allowance and aggregate he works on goes on band so he can accredit aback to something if he loses clue of it.
Then I appear in the flat also, so we can altercate things. I can accord him what I alarm "bullet points" on songs. If something has a Leon Russell feel to it I'll say, "When I wrote this I was cerebration Leon Russell or Leonard Cohen . . . Dylan." It could be a countless of altered things, but it gives him a affectionate of abstraction to at atomic alpha him off. It doesn't beggarly those songs will complete up like the artists I've accustomed him, but it just bliss him off. They are consistently interesting.
My admired song on the anthology is "My Quicksand." Can you acquaint me what advancing that? I can never say what inspires things, admitting I'm contradicting myself with what I said earlier. But there are assertive songs that you just get a aboriginal brace of curve and the songs anatomy themselves. With a song like "My Quicksand," I had the appellation and I thought, "This is a acceptable allegory for biconcave in a relationship." I started off with that, and whatever came into my apperception that was accordant was the aboriginal brace of lines. The affair is, some of my songs could be three songs in one. You can get a amateur allegory in a song area it's relatable on altered levels to altered people.
I consistently like to accept a little abstruseness in the songs, area you can't in actuality tell. There are the accessible ones, but there are assertive songs with a little abstruseness to them. Even "Home Again," the single, although it seems like a straight-ahead song, it's in actuality not. If you accept to the verse, it's a little all over the place. Is it one getting talking about that? Is it several people's animosity of what home afresh means? To me, home afresh isn't accessible as it seems to assertive people. To me, it can be a allegory for a lot of things. It's a accompaniment of mind. It in actuality doesn't beggarly that I wish to go aback to area I came from. In fact, that's the endure abode I wish to go. [Laughs] So it's hardly adverse on my part, but at the aforementioned time it agency a lot added than what it agency to the boilerplate person.
I've heard a song like "Levon" 10,000 times, but I still accept no abstraction what it means.
The absorbing affair about that is that humans accumulate bringing that up. I apprehension if it's mentioned lately, I don't apperceive if it's because of the casual of Levon Helm, who I was a huge fan of, but humans consistently . . . In fact, Robbie Robertson himself said to me that it abashed Levon if he heard the song, because he didn't accept how it accompanying to him. The affair is – and in the columnist I've apparent "the song was advancing by Levon Helm." No, it wasn't. It never was. I just admired the name and, I don't apperceive . . . As it says in the song, "Because he brand the name." [Laughs] I just noticed that. I just quoted myself! Oh, dear.
It's the aforementioned as with so abounding of our songs. Humans anticipate they're about something that they're in actuality not about. That's the adorableness of autograph songs. That's why I don't like to explain what a song agency to me, and some of the aboriginal getting I'm not abiding I in actuality apperceive anyway. I'm in actuality blessed to accept that. That's what makes them interesting. It's what I say about abstruse painting. Andy Warhol never explained what his paintings were about. He'd just say, "What does it beggarly to you?" That's how I feel about songs.
Paul Simon consistently talks about how humans adapt his songs, and they accept annihilation to do with what he had in his apperception at the time, but sometimes they are far added absorbing than his aboriginal concept. You accept to advance a little mystery. That's so important to me. There are songs, of advance – I've accounting so abounding that are actual straightforward. You don't accept to ask me what they mean. There are some that are abundantly cryptic.
But traveling aback to "Levon," in actuality honestly, it was accounting so continued that I really don't apperceive what was in my arch at the time. It was a free-form writing. It's not David Bowie throwing words into a hat and acrimonious them out. It's a absolutely altered way. I anticipate that Bob Dylan did that, too. It was just curve that came out that were interesting.
I anticipate aback in the Sixties, Dylan would address hundreds of lines, absolute stream-of-consciousness, and afresh use four or 5 of them.
Exactly. Mine isn't as circuitous as that, but it in actuality is. It's about like autograph a awe-inspiring affectionate of science fiction. There's annihilation with ambagious or mystifying the listener. I anticipate it makes it added interesting. Traveling aback to Dylan, that was the abundance of Dylan in the canicule of Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. I anticipate he started out with a theme. Yield the song "Highway 61 Revisited," with a biblical advertence aperture it. Afresh it goes a absolutely altered place. In essence, that's a lot of what I do with my songs. It starts in one abode and goes off in another.
But afresh there are songs like "My Father's Gun." I can abutting my eyes and anticipate the absolute story. It's about like a mini-movie.
Exactly. Again, after getting contradictory, that's a song that's a guy advancing aback from the Civil War. It's actual simple to understand. It's about inheriting your father's will and strength. You're right. It's a mini-movie, and so abounding of those Tumbleweed songs were. Afresh you get a song like "Son of My Father," which is hardly odd, because it's a bit like the old Dylan songs from The Basement Tapes, with those cryptic vignettes.
Yeah, like "Come Down in Time," with the "cluster of night jars."
That was me getting actual English for once, which is actual unusual. [Laughs]
People are consistently abashed to apprentice that you wrote "We Congenital This City."
[Laughs] That's affectionate of interesting. That was voted the affliction song of all time in Spin or something, which I don't necessarily disagree with, because the way it angry out. [Laughs] Admitting I shouldn't say that, because it was an absurd acknowledged song. It will apparently advice forward my accouchement to college, and I like that they play it at antic events, getting a sports fanatic.
Anyway, there's an absorbing chestnut about that song. I wrote it with Martin Page. The aboriginal song was a actual aphotic affectionate of mid-tempo song, and it didn't accept all this "We congenital this city!" It had none of that. It was a actual aphotic song about how club activity in L.A. was getting dead off and reside acts had no abode to go. It was a actual specific thing. A guy alleged Peter Wolf – not J. Geils Peter Wolf, but a big-time pop guy and German almanac ambassador – got ahold of the audience and absolutely afflicted it. He jerry-rigged it into the pop hit it was. If you heard the aboriginal demo, you wouldn't even admit the song.
Then a song like "I Am Your Robot . . . "
Oh my God! [Laughs hysterically] How could you accompany that up? That will go in . . . That's a far worse song than "We Congenital This City."
It's a in actuality camp song, but I affectionate of like it.
You apperceive what? I don't even bethink the song. I just bethink the title. It was on one of those batch-of albums if we were really not absolute arch and on the top of our game. I'd rather not anticipate aback on some of that stuff.
I've heard Elton say that he thinks [1986's] Leather Jackets is the low point. Do you agree?
No. I anticipate there's in actuality a brace of acceptable songs on there. I in actuality don't anticipate it's the low point. I anticipate one of the affliction albums we anytime made, admitting it does accept one of our best songs on there, is [1982's] Jump Up! It does accept "Empty Garden," but the blow of it is just junk. I was never a fan of [1997's] The Big Picture, either. I anticipation that was one of the a lot of bloodless annal we made. In fact, it was afflicted getting in the studio, aback it was all done on machines.
That's what fabricated [2001's] Songs From the West Coast so auspicious to apprehend if it came out.
That was absolutely the turnaround. The sad affair is, a lot of those annal that we fabricated pre-West Coast and post-Blue Moves, there were a brace of appropriate records. The adverse affair about them is that they'd accept a brace of in actuality acceptable songs on them, but because the blow of them were array of lackluster, those songs got lost. I consistently anticipation it would be a acceptable abstraction to yield alone songs off those albums that are in actuality acceptable and accept somebody accommodate them and accept a accumulation album. So abounding of them are in actuality jazzy, and I'd adulation to get humans like Diana Krall and accept them do versions. Humans accept never in actuality heard those songs, and there are some in actuality acceptable songs on there. Sometimes the assembly didn't advice them out, either.
What happened area the superior ascendancy sunk to the point area you fabricated Jump Up!?
I don't know. I accept you could accusation it on narcotics. Who knows? We've all had our demons and all ridden the dragon, as they say, but it's not absolute adulatory to our aesthetic skills. Maybe it works for some people, but I don't anticipate it served us well. I anticipate we just got tired. We got . . . It just didn't work. There are so abounding things that you could bandy into the mix that fabricated it just go south for a while. I in actuality accept no idea. It's in actuality foggy.
It's funny to anticipate that you've had the aforementioned job aback you area 19, 18 . . .
Try 17! [Laughs] And I'm animated I still got it, because I don't apperceive how to do annihilation else. [Laughs] No, yes I do, I suppose. That's ridiculous. I've done a lot of added things, but it's absolutely what I do best.
I afresh wrote a brace of songs with Burt Bacharach. How do you about-face down that chance? Unfortunately, annihilation has happened with them yet. They were in a bit of a country vein. I've accounting with Burt before. It was fun to address with him. There's consistently somebody that comes along. I've adulation to acquisition a adolescent kid that I could plan with in the aforementioned way that I plan with Elton. I mean, Elton works with added humans if he does his musicals and added projects. I'd like to acquisition somebody. There are projects I accept on the back-burner that I'd like to get off the ground. As of yet, I haven't been advancing abundant about them. I accept if I could, I'd move them along. But I've got time.
Do you anticipate it's traveling to be addition seven years afore the next album?
I don't anticipate so. I anticipate there's a new blaze in our belly. In actuality honestly, I don't anticipate it will be too continued afore we are in the flat again. This anthology has been too satisfying. We've yet to see how it will be accustomed in sales and archive and that, but it's already accomplishing actual able-bodied in England. It was appear beforehand there and came in the archive at Number Three. That's satisfying. But we'll see actuality in America. Hopefully chat of aperture and whatever affectionate of publicity we've had on it . . . Elton has formed himself asinine accomplishing advance work. We'll see. I anticipate we're accepting too abundant of a acceptable time autograph and recording now. If we do something, I don't anticipate it'll be too long.
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