This album's title came from Elton's state of mind at the time. Originally the title was to be Shine On Through. However, a lot of loose ends were being tied up, and he was co-producing, writing lyrics and melodies and even playing electric keyboards at the time. This, A Single Man.
Elton and Bernie had parted ways after Blue Moves, and Elton teamed up with Gary Osborne for what was to be his next album. However, John/Taupin leftovers from Blue Moves made it onto singles from A Single Man, as B sides.
Initially, when Elton went into the studio on March 10,1978, only a one-off single release was planned. Clive Franks reminisced, "Elton was tinkling away on the piano, between takes, and by the time we had finished recording the single, Ego, Elton had ideas for six more songs." In all, 28 songs were written and recorded for this album. Ego, Flintsone Boy, Shine On Through, I'll Try and Smile That Smile were all written ahead of time. Ego was left over from Blue Moves, a song Bernie tried to fit lyrics too, written first as a melody by Elton. All songs during this session were written the opposite way Elton was used to writing with Bernie Taupin. This time it was melodies, first, before the lyrics. Elton also helped write all the lyrics. He also wrote most of the titles on this album. Eventually, so many songs were written, that Elton's initail intentions were to release a double album. In fact, in a November 4, 1978 Billboard interview with Ed Harrison, Elton claimed that at least six very good John/Osborne songs remained from the Single Man sessions, but did not fit the style of this album. He was sure they would appear on the next studio release.
Elton had problems with his record company during the making of this album. He wanted to release the instrumental track Song For Guy, and MCA was dead set against it. MCA's viewpoint was that already the charts had one successful instrumental (Music Box Dancer), and they felt the charts would not support another one. Eventually, Elton and the fans won out, and the single proved to be very successful. The artistic struggle only frustrated Elton. He would sign a recording contract with David Geffen Records soon after.
The period of 1975 - 76 did not pass lightly in the lives of Bernie Taupin and Elton John. In 1975, Bernie and his first wife Maxine broke up. Maxine was soon linked with Kenny Passarelli. Guitarist Davey Johnstone was experiencing strange issues, and People magazine as well as Elton expressed a possible link with Kiki Dee, sharing a flat in London. (See the solo Scotland Edinburgh Show 1976). In 1976, Elton admitted his bisexuality and his loneliness in an October Rolling Stone magazine interview. The pendulum that brought good fortunes from 1972 to early 1975 had certainly begun to swing the other direction.
Even Producer Gus Dudgeon, fed up with Record people and Elton agreeing to change Blue Moves from a good single disc album to a bad or weak double album made him decide to split. Gus would later also express a rather bad day in the recording studio trying to get Elton to cut the lengthy Bite Your Lip Get Up And Dance, which Gus expressed as pure rubbish. Gus loved Crazy Water. So eventaully even producer Dudgeon moved on from the studio session work leaving Elton alone.
So it went until Elton begged Gus who was doing studio time ina room down the hall to join them. Elton was struggling to get the session for Song For Guy down. They just couldn't figure out how to mic the piano correctly. Elton begged Gus, Gus relented with no credits and helped out. Gus later expressed humor in watching as the tape in the recorded was going round and almost ran out, the studio technician had negelcted to replace the reel with a fresh reel. So, literally the final notes of the song played and the tape end flipped off the machine.
Gus told all of this in a private interview to then East End Lights reporter, John Higgins.
Music critics had been "Elton John-ned" out around Blue Moves and were waiting to bury any new album he'd release. But interestingly enough it was also a highly creative period for Elton and Bernie. Unfortuantely, the only way Bernie could deal with his personal problems was hitting the bottle or write about it. A problem Elton shared. This heart-on-your-sleeve writing process, coupled with Elton's own personal turmoils, did produce some marvelosuly desperate songs such as Tonight, and Sorry Seems. But even Elton recognized that Bernie's lyrics were begining to slip into too much despair when he admitted that many lyrics were rejected during the recording of 1976's Blue Moves album because of their overtly personal tendencies.
It was during this time period that Elton and Bernie began to experience their first period of creative differences. Bernie wanted to write more country western songs and Elton wanted to write more uptempo disco songs. Throughout 75/76/77 Elton tried to sidestep much of Bernie's lyrical opneness, but many songs still revealed Bernie's personal struggles, such as Bullet in The Gun and Someone's Final Song and Between 17. The most honest of these songs only ever appeared as a B side to Part Time Love. I Cry At Night was the MOST revealing lyric Bernie would write, but it was also soon to become the last Taupin/John release for nearly two years. Witihn the song's marvelous lyrics, Bernie writes ....
"This Man holds a hand that shows a tremble This man that I live in bares his faults. He has a heart and a well worn soul Ten years a slave to rock n roll!, But he has to tremble."
The song stands as a gem for die hard fans. The melody and vocals Elton delivered still stand as some of the most touching he's ever recorded.
In a Billboard interview, Ed Harrison pointed to a framed quote from London's Evening Star hanging on the wall of Elton's Benedict Canyon home near LA. The quote read, "If the public ever heard what Elton John is without Bernie, his career would die over night!" Elton's reaction jokingly, "Oh, God imagine if it comes true?" Then he went on to say...
" Bernie and I havn't really fallen out, it's just a temporary situation. But since Taupin moved to LA and I remained in Engalnd, writing songs through the post has become very difficult. I'm sure Bernie is hurt."
During the late 1970's Bernie went on to write some marvelous lyrics for the likes of Alice Cooper, Melissa Manchester and Rod Stewart. The highlights of these were songs entitled How You Gonna See Me Now? with it's classic Taupin lyric line, "Like a Hobo in the snow", and For The Working Girl ( which later even inspired a TV movie). And arguably all of those musical collaborations with different songwriters were far better than those of the John/Osborne team. But mention should be made of the fact that all through 1977, and up to 1980, Elton still wrote melodies to Benie's lyrics, so they never officially broke up. The trouble seemed clear, Elton just didn't know how to write an uptempo tune to a song lyric with a title like Lovesick. A one-off B Side that illustrated the conflict well, a thuddingly harsh song title, and yet a quirky uptempo, happy Elton. The mix was growing odder over time. That change in thought process however was a trick that Elton had once used well in songs such as I Think I'm gonna be a teenage Idol, Better Off Dead and Texan Love Song was now not working for the team in the mid 70's. Ego was the fire that started it all. A song filled with so many tempo changes it was screaming out to have been recorded by Queen or the Who, not Elton John. Although to this very day it remains a popular live request number among die hard fans.
With the change of songwriting partners, The Rolling Stone interview revelations and the mass radio appeal of his earlier records, A Single Man never stood a chance of success, critically or musically. The album was not welcomed by FM radio at all, although Madness and Shine On Through did receive some airplay. Nonetheless, the album did climb to #15 on the U.S. charts and #8 in Britain. In 1981, Elton's Love Songs compilation album was the top seller of his library of music in Italy. But it was A Single Man that topped the Italian Association of Musical Critics Awards Ceremony. The album won top honors for production and arrangements, no doubt due to the overwhelming response to the European hit Song For Guy. It went on to sell over 1,565,000 copies worldwide.
Now, more than ten years later, the album is merely regarded as an interesting creative experiment on Elton's part. And the only stand out track is the instrumental Song For Guy. The song is highly respected in Europe and is a concert favorite. The American fans all seemed to agree that It Ain't Gonna Be Easy, Shine On Through, Madness, Oh Georgia and Shooting Star also merit serious listening.
Fans and music critics did not welcome the change of lyricist with open arms. The same media backlash that surrounded Elton's laying off of drummer Nigel Olsson and Bassist Dee Murray in 1974, now attacked the new songwriting partnerhip of Elton and Gary Osborne. But Elton realized the change was necessary, for if he had remained writing soley with Bernie, they both might have burned out creatively.
Elton's first lengthy meeting with Gary Osborne occured during the 1973 recording sessions for Kiki Dee's Loving and Free LP (Osborne penned the lyrics to Kiki's U.K. hit Amoureuse). Their friendship blossomed in the fall of 1976, when Osborne began fiddling with lyrics to Shine On Through during the Blue Moves sessions. Elton had the melody lying around and would periodically play it on the piano, he soon sent a tape to Osborne. Smile That Smile was the first official song Gary and Elton wrote together however. Later released by another singer. Gary Osborne spoke of this meeting to Randy Alexander in 1992: "Well, the first time I met Elton was down at the Cromwellian Club, when Elton and Long John Baldry were performing as Bluesology. I was maybe 15. Then in 1971, I again was introduced to Elton by Kenny Jones (drummer for the Faces and the Who).
"In 1973 we began work on Kiki Dee's first album Loving and Free. The single, Amoureuse, was actually a lyric that I had written back in 1971 about Veronique Sanson, a French recording star and Stephen Stills' former wife. It was Kiki Dee who began introducing me to Elton. We really became good friends. Elton would come round to my house, and at some point in the evening, we'd play a lot of poker together. Just the two of us, for days on end. Elton would say, "One day we'll write songs together." And I'd say,"Don't say that because I don't want to be embarrassed. That's not why we're friends." Elton asked me to collaborate on an entire album with him just after I'd written the album for War Of The Worlds, (1977)."
Elton did tremendous promotion for this LP. In fact, on one day he did 20 press interviews over a seven-hour period while visiting Los Angeles, California. One Saturday in early October of 1978, Elton surprised 250 MCA executives at their national convention by performing live for the first time in a year. He did a two- hour solo set that included much material off A Single Man. However it was quite obvious he'd been drinking. Forgetting the words to Return to Paradise in mid performance. He also played Ego and apologized for it's failures. Tape does exist of this entire show, and highlights include, Candle In The Wind, Roy Rogers, a wonderfully inspired rendition of Shooting Star coupled with Song For Guy and a quirky joke song called The Benedict Canyon Boogie that only lasts 1 minute but is hysterical.
Shine On Through still stands as one of the albums lost gems. Many fans compared it to Your Song. Elton appeared on the Moracombe and Wise British TV comedy show and did a stunning solo rendition of the song. The melody Elton had written back during the Blue Moves sessions. Although Bernie tried several times to write a lyric to it, it was Gary who was able to finish it. The album's first single, Part-Time Love, was Elton's catchy pop tribute to the 1960's R and B hits of the Four Tops as well as the 1966 hit single 96 Tears by Question Mark and The Mysterians.
Song For Guy was written and recorded on the Sunday afternoon of August 18,1978. Elton found out the next day that a Rocket Records messenger boy named Guy Burchett had been killed on that same Sunday in a motorcycle accident. Elton had felt it was a song about death; hence the song title and lyric line "Life isn't everything."
Earn While You Learn was originally supposed to be the B side to a promotional 12" single for A Single Man, but it was never released. The lyrics to Madness were Elton's sentiments about the strife in Northern Ireland as related by Gary Osborne. Elton despised the ludicrousness of innocent people dying from bombs placed in their cars or stores. In the Billboard interview, Elton said of the album:
"Everything in Madness is just what I wanted to say, even if Gary wrote it. I had ideas for words here and there. Gary didn't mind changing things. My thoughts were never able to come out until now." That being said, Elton did find time to clown in the studio during the recording of this work. There is a version of Madness featuring Elton joking with himself as he lays down vocal harmonies, and he jokes about the songs lyrics, coughing when the bomb goes off and such, the results are quite funny.
Later on in the same interview for Billboard in 1978, Elton said, "It all goes back to being lucid and more clearheaded. Writing and recording the songs for this album was the most fun I've had since doing, Honky Chateau." He went on to say, "I've always had crossroads in my career, and I think Blue Moves was one of them. You can't follow a successful album with another unless you wait three or four years. I've got in the routine of doing albums. You can't maintain huge selling albums. There must be a break."
Return To Paradise is a tongue in cheek look at British people who go away on holiday wishing not to return. It is also a tribute to horn player Herb Albert and his classic songs like The Lonely Bull. Both Return To Paradise and Song For Guy were later featured in the Chevy Chase movie, Oh, Heavenly Dog.
Although Elton kept musically active in the studio with the Thom Bell sessions, Ego, and this album, the actual center point of the years 1976 - 1978 was a sudden change of heart and new planned solo world tour for 1979. The germ of the idea sprouted from Elton and percussionist Ray Cooper's week long series of concerts at London's Rainbow Theatre in November 1977. Soon after those series of shows, Elton and John Reid began making contractual negotiations with Russia for shows in Moscow in 1979. So Elton began to use any appearance as a warm up for that tour. Combining this idea with a need to promote this album took Elton to RTL studios in Nice, France where Elton performed a phenominal 45 minute set to a small studio audience. Ego and Candle In The Wind were definite highlights. Elton's announced retirement from Rock N Roll touring only lasted a brief time. Because he soon realized the solo shows were more challenging artistically, but allowed him more stage flexibility. It was also less headaches than a full tour with band and entourage. The fun was indeed returning, or was it just Elton's work ethics kicking in? This would all soon change with a new record deal.
The art design and Promotional Departments were also hard at work at MCA and Rocket Records. Among the items produced up front for fans and behind the scenes for promoting Elton John again were, a white piano ash tray with the words Rocket Records and Elton glasses sitting on the keyboard, a Leather Jacket and other Jackets with the words A Single Man, a leather notebook, small pad with similar logo, a pencil and pen set, buttons, badges, a neon glass wall hangin sign with the words in script "Elton John", a huge poster and stand up posters featuring Elton, Mobiles, picture disc's, (one rarer than another .. the one featuring his back.)
According to a 1978 French Disc interview, one John/Taupin ballad written during the 1977/78 period is a thowback to an earlier event. In 1976, Frank Sinatra appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in London. During the concert performance, Sinatra sang Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. After the song, he had Elton and Bernie take a bow. Both songwriter's were so respectful that they told Sinatra later that they would like to write a song specifically for him. That song became Remember (I'm Still In Love With You). Fans of Little Jeannie will see Elton must have been remembering this song when he wrote the title for that later hit with Gary Osborne. Bernie's lyrics for this Sinatra inspired track were very "Blue Moves-ish", a factor that may have made Elton reconsider it's release with it's obvious reference to Maxine, "I fell in love with you one September.... When I was young and so secure... I wrote to you of romance made in heaven." But Elton's melody is pure Sinatra, especially the repetitive title, "Remember", "Remember" and the particular phrasing of the line "When I was Young and so secure." Unfortunately, Sinatra's version of the song has never been released. It probabaly remains as one of dozens of studio sessions Sinatra aborted throughout 1977/78 for Reprise Records. Elton later repeated all this with Blue Eyes.
An Elton piano demo of Remember exists but remains unreleased and in the private collections around the world. Elton's emotional vocal is the highlight of the recording. But this song did resurface in 1981 on Donatella Rettore's album Estasi Clamorosa. Rettore, a well known female Italian singer, recalled meeting Elton in a period interview:
"I went to London in the Summer of 1981 to meet Elton because he had listened to my previous albums, and he really wanted to meet me. I was so excited because I was such a fan of his; Elton was my Idol. Elton told me that he liked my voice and style a lot and that he had written a song he thought suited me well. He told me Bernie Taupin had written the lyric in only one night. We passed several days just drinking beer and talking about music, he was great."
(Note - The song Remember was first released on Donatella's Estasi Clamorosa LP on Ariston, #ARLP012387, in 1981. In 1983, Donatella again recorded an Elton John song; this time with lyrics from Gary Osborne; Sweetheart On Parade appeared on her Far West LP , #CG - 20384.)
Ego
As mentioned earlier, the initial songs for the LP had their birth in the recording of a stand alone John/Taupin composition, Ego, which was released between Blue Moves and A Single Man. To celebrate this single's release, MCA and Elton's management prepared an involved promotional campaign. Red and white Ego pins were passed out. 75 lucky MCA executives received a specially printed watch showing a red -suited, red - eye glassed Elton playing a piano. The watch , like the pin, also spelled out Ego. This promotional item alone has been valued at close to $350.00 today. Eeven the average movie-goer at the time of the single's release could not miss out on the short video of the song, which introduced any new Hollywood film in American Theatres. The video was also broadcast on the US Midnight Special TV Show. But radio stations in America had little room on their playlists for a new single by Elton John. Even when it did air, it was the rare DJ who did not take the opportunity to throw a snipe or two at the song's composer. The song quickly became a victim of all the critical backlash and only reappeared in Elton's live concerts in 1979 and 1980. Today, it is highly regarded by Elton's biggest fans.
Ego nearly became a bad case of the pot calling the kettle black when Elton told the London Daily Epress, "Ego is deciated to the Jaggers and Bowies of the world - especially to Mr. McCartney. I like most of the stuff the Stones have done, but they're one of the worst live bands I've ever seen. David Bowie is so psuedo-intellectual, and I can't bear psuedo-intellectuals. And McCartney's music has gone so far down the tubes, I can't believe it..." In another interview, Elton went on to say,
"Ego was just something I'd had lying around, and I wanted to release it for a long time. Unfortunately, the time wasn't right. It's been disappointing. I really had hoped it would do well because I really liked it. I wrote the song jointly with Bernie Taupin, and we never thought of it as an autobiography until it came out. It's about the silliness of rock n roll stars, and the video film was supposed to show just how stupid rock n roll can be. It's the grotesque side of rock n roll. And it's turned out to be one of the most sincere songs we've ever written."
The single's quirky, repetitive B - side was Flintstone Boy, with melody and lyrics by Elton. Lyrically the song seemed subtly tinged with bisexual references, a fact that did not help the single's success, (or lack). But oddly Flintstone Boy recieved more radio airplay than the A side in some cities for the first two weeks following the single's release. Most of Elton's die hard fans smile fondly at the song's silliness, but years later it still sounds stronger than some tracks on Leather Jackets, and other later career releases.
Bernie Taupin & Alice Cooper: From The Inside
During the period of 1977/78, Taupin kept very busy with new close friend Alice Cooper. Both men decided to admitt to their addictions to drugs and alcohol and to get help. Bernie quietly took care of his problem, but Alice actually checked himself into a rehab center. Soon after, both friends decided to write one of the most honest and disturbing records of 1978. Cooper's From The Inside LP was critically slammed, but the album is painfully honest as well s lyrically and musically sound as well as brilliant. Very reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. In How You Gonna See Me Now, Bernie refers to himself as a "Hobo In The Snow". Within the lyrics to From The Inside, the album's title cut, Bernie wrestles with his foolish rock n' roll abandonment:
"I'm stuck here on the inside looking out I'm just another case Where's my makeup, Where's my face on the inside."
The album contains some great songs such as the obvious Elton inspired, Jackknife Johnny with Kiki Dee backing vocals. and the dark love ballad... The Ballad of Milly and Billy, We're All Crazy with it's shockingly hummable melody and equally shocking lyrics.. "All sliced up and chopped up in baggies, guess love makes you do funny things!" The two years or so that followed Blue Moves remain as creatively active years for John/Taupin but seprately they were actually having more success's than together. All that would soon change with the next release that nearly ended such a great career.
Return to A Single Man album information.