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Visually, musically,
and in every other way, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player is
engaging
entertainment and a nice step forward in phase two of Elton John's
career,
the phase that began with Honky Chateau. The essence of Elton's
personality,
on record and in performance, has always been innocent exuberance, a
quality
intrinsic in most of the best rock'n'roll of the Fifties and early
Sixties.
Elton's only major problem after the success of his first album was
finding
the right direction for his talent, and until Honky the path chosen led
up a blind alley. In Madman Across the Water, which closed phase one,
Gus
Dudgeon's overly lavish production and Bernie Taupin's often
impenetrable
lyrics ultimately created a barrier between Elton and his audience that
severely endangered his star status. Honky Chateau was a sensational,
unexpected
comeback, as much a triumph of Dudgeon and Taupin's versitile
professionalism
as of Elton's musicality. Happily, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano
Player
is as good, if not better than its predecessor. The heart of the album
is a sequence of American movie fantasies whose chief aim is to
delight.
Though there is implicit social commentary in several songs, notably
"Have
Mercy on the Criminal" and "Texan Love Song," it is set forth as
stereotypical
movie fare, meant only to vary the emotive tension between episodes. In
general, the most effective songs are the simplest excursions in
fantasy-nostalgia.
Typical is the irresistibly catchy and corny hit, "Crocodile Rock."
More
successfully than any recent single it recaptures the spirit of
late-Fifties
rock'n'roll, parodying styles ("At The Hop" and "Runaway") with such
affectionate
high spirits that the song emerges as a genuinely fresh artifact of the
Seventies. Elton's tune and Taupin's lyric are ideally wedded. The song
has a conventional verse-chorus structure and an overall diction that
is
casual and idiomatic without straining for precision: "I remember when
rock was young/Me and Susie had so much fun/Holding hands and skimming
stones/Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own." Teenage fantasy,
more
explicit and without hindsight, is also the theme of "Teacher I Need
You"
and "I'm Going to Be a Teenage Idol," both of which have the same
off-the-cuff
buoyancy as "Crocodile Rock" and the same playful attitude toward a
semi-mythic
past. In "Have Mercy on the Criminal," the inventive eclecticism of
John-Taupin
is especially striking with its interposition of guitar figuration from
"Layla" and a typically spacious orchestral arrangement by Paul
Buckmaster.
The album's most moving cut, however, is the opener, "Daniel." A gem of
technical virtuosity, it has Elton doubling on electric piano and
"flute"
mellotron and Ken Scott on synthesizer, together making as deft use of
the new electronic instrumentation as I've heard. Elton's melody and
vocal
are unusually tender and expressive, and Taupin's lyric, in which he
recalls
watching a plane carrying away his older brother, is exceptionally
lovely.
If Honky Chateau established Elton John as a leading contender for the
bantam-weight championship of rock & roll, Don't Shoot Me I'm
Only
the Piano Player should hand him the title.
Stephen Holden,
Rolling Stone, 3-15-73
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