Tuesday Tune - Elton John’s Tiny Dancer

Okay, I’m aware I forgot to post the Tuesday Tune last week. Well, it was a busy Tuesday. We had film posts and music posts and random stuff too. So, instead I want to talk about Elton John’s Tiny Dancer today (or this evening, at least).

Although I was aware of the song when I was younger, I, like many, only really began to appreciate Tiny Dancer when it featured in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. In one of the greatest scenes in modern filmmaking, the emotionally battered and bruised rock band listen to and begin to sing along with the lyrics of Tiny Dancer in a beautiful and touching scene that united them in music though their personal differences might be pulling them apart. Watch this:

Written 38 years ago in 1971 for Elton’s album Madman Across the Water, the lyrics were by Bernie Taupin, Elton’s writing partner at the time. They were inspired by Taupin’s first trip to America and the entire album was the first album they wrote after spending time in the US. The “Blue jean baby…seamstress for the band” is Maxine Feibelmann, Bernie Taupin’s girlfriend and later wife. She traveled with the band on their early tours, often sewing together the costumes and fixing their clothes.

Madman was much more heavily produced than Elton’s first four albums and this was one of his first songs with an elaborate string section arranged by Paul Buckmaster, who arranged the stings on many of Elton’s albums as well as songs by The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen. Though Tiny Dancer was initially a non-starter as a single, reaching only 41 on the US pop charts and not even appearing UK charts at all, the song slowly became one of Elton’s most popular songs. It was ranked 387 on the List of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, which is no mean feat.

Recently, and I know many people will agree with me, it was savaged to pieces in the remix by DJ Ironik and Chipmunk, posted by Will Knott a few weeks ago. The original will no doubt long outlive this abominable piece of ‘music’.

And though Phoebe in Friends has forever made this song a tribute to Tony Danza (“Hold me close young Tony Danza”), Tiny Dancer is nevertheless a classic piece of pop history and a song that will continue to play, inspire and ignite passions for years to come.

Here’s Elton John with his classic song Tiny Dancer:

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums

But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

And lastly, I found this nice little bit of sheet music on my travels across the interweb. For those of you who are musically minded, you might appreciate it.