![]() It’s got some good stuff on it: “Cage the Songbird,” “Idol.” But I think it probably could have been a single album. I said I made some poor choices in what I wrote about.” Some of the songs are too depressing. That’s one of my favorite albums!” I said, “I didn’t say I didn’t like it. But I didn’t know you didn’t like Blue Moves. Not really from him, but after Elton read my book, he said, “It’s absolutely brilliant. ![]() Some things in it really made me laugh out loud, like the description of R&B musician Billy Stewart stopping to pee by the side of the highway. I didn’t really go to Elton for any advice on my book either.ĭid you learn anything from Elton’s book that you didn’t know about him, or vice versa? “I’m much more at ease with a smaller world and a simpler life.”Įlton published his memoir, Me, four years ago. Did you consult with him on that?Īctually, no, but I really enjoyed it. “It wouldn’t matter if I was Elon Musk,” Taupin said as we sat in his tranquil backyard. In contrast to the castlelike abodes that John commands around the world, Taupin’s house is a lovely but - by his considerable means - modest Spanish ranch-style home. Many more arose in the long conversation I had with Taupin recently at his home located three hours north of Los Angeles, in a verdant valley above Santa Barbara. But if you’re patient, there are plenty of tasty revelations along the way. Like Dylan, Taupin’s isn’t big on detailing a song’s meaning or inspiration. “It’s a book of incidents, happenstance, and kismet,” Taupin says, likening the result to another leapfrogging music memoir, Chronicles, by Bob Dylan. True to its title, it isn’t a conventional blow-by-blow life chronology but instead a wild array of colorful anecdotes and drunken adventures. Scattershot has its own fascinating parameters. Though he took a stab at writing his own story in 1988 ( A Cradle of Halos: Sketches of a Childhood), it was only published in the U.K., and the book essentially ends before his career even begins. Though John has talked endlessly about the avalanche of events that ensued in the years since, Taupin has less often done so - and certainly never with the specificity and flair he has in his new memoir, Scattershot (out September 12). When John told the label he could write music but not lyrics, he was handed an envelope with poems blindly submitted by Taupin. The two famously found one another other by fluke in 1967 after they each answered an ad in New Music Express from Liberty Records looking for fresh talent. Their rare way of writing - with each working separately, often in different parts of the world, before conferring on small tweaks to set everything in perfect sync - has created one of the most enduring and profitable relationships in pop history. His lyrics tell stories - often eccentric ones - and John makes them sing. He has given them their plots, characters, settings, attitudes, even their worldviews. It was nominated for Best Video of the Year at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, losing out to " Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.For more than 50 years, Bernie Taupin has given Elton John’s indelible melodies far more than their words. Director Johnson re-used some of the effects techniques in award-winning videos for Peter Gabriel the following year: " Sledgehammer" and " Big Time". Scenes were also shot at Calvary Baptist Church in Hi Vista, California. Some parts were shot in the back yard and pool of actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who was co-writing Byrne's film True Stories at the time. Johnson and features the band and various objects revolving, including boxes revolving around David Byrne's head, as well as a couple growing older, masked businessmen pummeling each other with briefcases and a runaway shopping cart, as if in their own "road to nowhere". The video for the song was directed by Byrne and Stephen R. So, out of embarrassment, or shame, I wrote an intro section that had a couple more in it."Ĭash Box said that "this marching single which features David Byrne's soothing lead vocal is a curious and circus-ride look at life." Billboard said that within the song " a cappella gospel leads into Louisiana hootenanny." Music video The front bit, the white gospel choir, is kind of tacked on, 'cause I didn't think the rest of the song was enough. "I wanted to write a song that presented a resigned, even joyful look at doom," recalls David Byrne in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads. The song was released as a single in 1985 and reached No. 25 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and No. 6 on the UK, German and South African singles charts. It also appeared on Best of Talking Heads, Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites, the Once in a Lifetime box set and the Brick box set. ![]() " Road to Nowhere" is a rock song written by David Byrne for the 1985 Talking Heads album Little Creatures.
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