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Songs From The West Coast

Elton John's New Millennium return to form

By Sean CallaghanPublished 4 years ago Updated 7 months ago 6 min read
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Photograph by Sam Taylor-Wood shot at Raes Restaurant in Los Angeles

In the Summer of 2000, in Nice, France, Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin convened at Elton's home there to address what they considered a debacle; Elton's most recent catalog LP The Big Picture. According to Elton, he'd been thinking and reading about the praise being heaped on the duo's Tumbleweed Connection, their Band-inspired third album and reappraised his career as getting away from the goal of producing sturdy songs and consistent cohesive albums. At this new millennium summit, Bernie and Elton agreed that future albums would need to be albums they would both be happy to be associated with, admitting they had spent too many years releasing albums of varying levels of quality.

So a lot was riding on the next Elton John album, which he named Songs from the West Coast, as this was his first catalog album to be recorded largely in the Los Angeles area. To get things started, Elton brought in former Madonna producer Patrick Leonard as producer. In 2000, Leonard had also produced the soundtrack to The Road to El Dorado, the Dreamworks animated film for which Elton had written songs with lyricist Tim Rice.

As Elton claimed to have been inspired by Music from Big Pink in writing Tumbleweed, he claims to have been inspired here by Heartbreaker, the debut solo album of former Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams, which featured a spare song-oriented alt-country sound. One could certainly question how inspirational this proved to be as what Elton came up with was not nearly as spare or introspective, but there's no question that Elton worked hard to make these songs more piano-driven and harmony intensive than his songs had been in years and accordingly sounding more like his "classic years" than he had since at least Captain Fantastic.

While I still think Made in England was its equal, I can't disagree with anyone who feels that this was the best Elton LP in at least 25 years and arguably as essential to his sustained popularity as The Lion King soundtrack in the previous decade. When the album rocked, it did so in an unforced way, and its ballads were uncluttered by the dramatic strings that often worked but at times served to slow the albums to melodrama and sap the freshness of the Elton/Bernie collaboration when it was at its best.

Songs from the West Coast was a relatively difficult endeavor, recorded on analog tape because that's how the classic albums were recorded. The final set was finally released on October 2, 2001 into a post-9/11 world that surely needed as many strong albums as could be mustered.

The album opens strong with the piano-based "The Emperor's New Clothes," which provides a clue to what would follow: like on the early albums, this album would be about the songs and about a strong performance. Any hits that would come about would do emerge naturally.

Next is "Dark Diamond," which really is a gem of a song, featuring clavinet and harmonica from Motown legend Stevie Wonder, who in 2001 had been heard from all too infrequently in the decade just passed. It is a very good song and decent Bernie lyric about the hardening effect of time and, one could infer, fame.

Next is more piano-based goodness in the form of "Look Ma, No Hands," on which Davey Johnstone, Nigel Olsson and Paul Bushnell play guitar, drums and bass respectively in a style reminiscent of the Johnstone-Olsson-Dee Murray heyday, and provide backing vocals that also recall those days. And in fact, this album marks Olsson's return to the drum throne on an Elton album for the first time since 1984's Breaking Hearts.

"American Triangle" concerns the "hate-crime" murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, to whom the album is also dedicated. It's Elton performing at his most heartfelt and features harmony vocals from fellow gay musician Rufus Wainwright; with this song, Elton shows a significant ability to put across sentiment even without the heavy strings that had adorned many of his songs in the 80s and 90s. Everything here is subtle with no lapse in drama and emotion.

Next up is "Original Sin," which features Rusty Anderson from Paul McCartney's band on guitars and producer Patrick Leonard on keyboards, and a sweeping orchestral arrangement from Paul Buckmaster, who earlier that year had been introduced to a new generation by creating the arrangements for Train's hit song "Drops of Jupiter." Buckmaster had made a welcome return to the Elton fold for the album Made in England, but was not part of the Big Picture debacle. Here, Elton shows that as always effective strings can greatly enhance his songs.

Next is "Birds," which features prominent guitars and weirdly processed drums. This is probably the song most inspired by Ryan Adams and by Elton's desire to make songs like he did on Tumbleweed; it has a punchy Americana feel that showed a new aspect of Elton's songwriting and at the time of the album release he singled out the song as one he was extremely proud of.

Following is the album's first single "I Want Love," a philosophical look at the concept of love, which featured an accompanying music video directed by Sam Taylor-Wood starring actor Robert Downey Jr. lip-synching the song while walking through Greystone Mansion. The song was also used to great effect in the 2019 biopic Rocket Man and was recently added to Elton's Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour setlist and covered by former Brian Wilson Band percussionist/vocalist Nelson Bragg.

"The Wasteland" has backing vocals from Kudisan Kai and Tata Vega. Vega, or Tats, was a featured artist in the excellent documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, which looked at the art of background singing, and would later return for Elton's 2010 album with Leon Russell, The Union. She was a full time backing vocalist for the live Elton John Band from 2010 until 2014. The song is soulful, with lots of hook; a straightout success.

"The Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes" is another showcase for the arrangement skills of Paul Buckmaster and features prominent mandolin from Davey Johnstone. It's well done, an above average Elton ballad.

Next is "Love Her Like Me" which features legendary keyboardist Billy Preston on Hammond B3 Organ, Rusty Anderson on guitars, Matt Chamberlain on drums and Davey Johnstone and Nigel Olsson on backing vocals. An old-fashioned love song with an effective guitar hook and strong vocal work, it would have been a strong album track on any album of Elton's career.

"Mansfield" features bouzoukai from Rusty Anderson and once again showcases Paul Buckmaster's subtle orchestral arrangements.

The final track on the album is probably its best known, "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore." The basic track for the song has Elton on Piano, Paul Bushnell on bass and Matt Chamberlain on drums. Backing vocals on the song are by Gary Barlow, Kudisan Kai, Davey Johnstone and Nigel Olsson. It's a classic Elton track in the best sense, comfortable yet entirely original.

Songs From The West Coast was a major critical success and a strong step by Elton into the new millennium. His future 2000s albums would all be considerably stronger than in the 1990s, although few if any would match the consistency and popularity of this one.

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About the Creator

Sean Callaghan

Neurodivergent, Writer, Drummer, Singer, Percussionist, Star Wars and Disney Devotee.

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