Elton John - behind the scenes, in the studio

as a kind life I was never interested in writing lyrics because I never really thought I was any good at it I just stuck I knew I could write melodies and I liked Burnitz lyrics I just left it about and that's the way it stayed really presenting all these characters in this sort of cinematic framework you know you're bringing up Danny Bailey and sweet Painted Ladies and dirty little girls and you know they're all part of this big sort of complex moving and I would write to about 90% of these lyrics back then and there weren't that many lyrics discarded but I loved the idea of setting up little pictures in your mind it was it never mattered to him necessarily that the lyric told a story from front to back there's no such thing as a hit lyric there are hip melodies which if you're lucky you'll get a great lyric that go with it and then people people don't listen to records for the lyric if they like the record enough because they like the feel of it or they like the Mele then they'll start to listen to the look I'm gonna have a stack of lyrics and he just looked through them he wouldn't do any pre work in those days you know he wouldn't ever you know sneak him at home with him your wait till they get to the CEO and then literally sit down after breakfast in and in write a song you know I mean I've seen them write songs and the time that it's taken me to make a chicken sandwich is up when but it was the intro that I got first and the melody is very wistful as well I know should've stayed off oh I can staff to take down a keen Apple it's so high my voice has changed so much since when I listen to the album sound like some castrati singing I mean I think I did 17 albums in five years because I was contracted to do two out this year which I did and didn't find it difficult it was quick I mean in those days you know you didn't have the technologies to slow you down I was find now that technology slows you down so much we probably did about four songs a day writing and writing them and recording plus overdubbing plus vocals is since they sounds insane but it's that's the way that is probably gets pretty much my unit player to the band when we first learnt it might just get old it's down on a plop and I wanna rock wanna get a bellyful of beer about the monkeys later she don't care so basically this is how it sounded when we came out the studio before we added any of the stuff to it later on so it just sounds like any other regular Sierra Colina we put on some sound effects which are basically from an Elton concert of the festival all that they've done about four or five years before you've got a jimi hendrix's applause on the Isle of Wight which was running on a loop which we just faded in whenever we wanted to we throw a load of flat back on it to make it sound live dubbed on some whistles and handclaps doing the wrong beat because English audiences always do the wrong beat they're always on the honors set on the off which drives me crazy but that's what they do and that's the T boy being a whistle it might be you I don't know it's like you know it probably means I can't do those about this pathetic whistle I can't be read at all okay put it on it again it was getting a lot of play on black radio of the tide roll out of the woodwork and there was bird into your brain I said to you on the treadmill combination of myself and Nigel Olsson and Dean Murray who's unfortunately no longer with us was really a special sound of justice bland again that was just brilliant was great fun to do and very inspirational thank you can no in his number one for eight weeks in America sells sixty million copies that's pretty fantastic I think was a good collection of salt brilliantly recorded by Gus dudgeon and then you played by me and ban in listen to double albums it's as good as you know there's any this like Electric Ladyland there's couple of stones are the beatles why I'm not saying it's as good as anybody's I think quality wise it ranks up there he was on fire in the writing sent and I guess I was in the lyrical sense there's magic that time in my life will live with that creative people will never ever come back again you search for it and you try and think I would be great to do but it'll never happen like that again it's a special time it wasn't hard wasn't it wasn't an effort it was a pleasure nowadays sometimes it's an effort and it's the same recalling can be difficult but I think in those days because we were a unit because of money and relationship with Bernie and and the band and the management team and everything that went with it it was just like a little family that's it that's all

Channel: Dexter Haven

Views: 50,022

Rating: 4.9600797 out of 5

Keywords: elton, john, studio, song, writing, bennie, jets

Id: 14An7s2EeWQ

Length: 6min 10sec (370 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2012