Open Questions, Music Edition (Part II)
By Mitch Berg
To: Sir Elton John
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Fabric choices
Sir John:
While acknowledging your record as a master of popular songcraft – especially on the albums of your heyday, like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – and allowing that you certainly had a way with writing an amazing hook or two, I feel compelled to note that your longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin, could be fairly described as “a bit over the top” sometimes, to the point where some of the songs make, regrettably, no sense at all.
For example: in your classic long-form pop song “Tiny Dancer”, the chorus – as catchy a bit of pop treacle as ever graced the airwaves – starts out wonderfully. It is, indeed, a memorable confection, scooting from hook to hook with gay abandon (so to speak).
But then comes the line “lay me down in sheets of leather” – and the air just zips out of the whole enterprise.
Leather sheets sound troublesome; on hot days, they must be legendarily uncomfortable; even under ideal conditions, they must be sticky and rife with friction.
Please clarify and, if necessary, have a word with Mr. Taupin.
That is all.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I always thought it was “linen” pronounced wierdly in some kind of australian/british way like “lannen.” But leather? I never heard that in the song. Maybe “it was tie me up with straps of leather and he forgot to change the last word did the final take.”
June 17th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’ve always heard it as “linen” as well. I may be wrong though, I’ve had a busy day today.
That song always reminds of the episode of WKRP in Cincinnati where Bailey Quarters (the Mary Ann to Loni Anderson’s Ginger on that show) gets romanced by a Russian guy who may or may not be a KGB agent.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
a google for “Sheets of linen” lyric hits on tiny dancer
seems to be how a lot of people hear the line
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eltonjohn/tinydancer.html
on the other hand a google for “Sheets of leather” lyric doesnt
June 17th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Put me down for linen sheets too, but my brain always forces me to hear lyrics in a way that makes sense, so I often get them wrong.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
It could well be “linen”, since EJ seems to pronounce “toad” as “taowed” in “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. Or is that just my bad ears? I’ve always needed lyric sheets to understand his songs.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
OK, OK, OK…I know, it is in fact, “linen”. But when I hear the song, whenever it gets to the chorus, I have to do a quick head check; “did he say leather?”
Just pointing it out.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Mitch,
On the next article (“Pluggage”) the [form] tag for the PayPal submit button needs to be closed ([/form]) so the “Submit Comment” button doesn’t send you to the PayPal site.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Doh! I meant to say “right after the freakin’ long [input] tag”, but I forgot.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I thought it said “Lay me down and she’s so fair there”….or something like that. It got a little sketchy after ‘she’s so’. Oops. I like that song a lot tho. It reminds me of riding with my boyfriend in his ’65 Ford pickup at dusk driving home down a Colorado highway after riding dirt bike all day. 1973. Sigh.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:15 am
EJ has always been a tough one for getting the lyrics down, but they usually make sense. Paul Simon, on the other hand, has often caused me to stop and think, “that sounded as if it fit, but what the heck did it mean?” To cite one example, from “The Myth of Fingerprints”:
Well, the sun gets weary
And the sun goes down
Ever since the watermelon
And the lights come up
On the black pit town
Ever since the watermelon? What did the watermelon do? How is it related to the sun going down (hey! back to EJ!) ? I used to think the line was “Elvis ate the watermelon” which made even less sense.