Chords for Elton John & Bernie Taupin - Interview (OGWT) PT 3 of 3

_ Thanks, Alvin.
Thank you.
We've also got your lyricist, Bernie Taupin, here tonight.
Bernie, you wrote the words to that song, All the Nasties,
which is a reply to your critics, in effect.
Why did you feel the critics needed answering?
Well, I think everybody sort of gets critics at one time in their life.
I don't know if we've got more than our fair share,
but, you know, the idea just came across,
and I think it [E] was an idea from both of us.
In fact, he came across with the idea first,
and sort of asked if I minded doing something.
And, sort of, I mean, genuinely I felt the same way as he did,
I mean, naturally, because everything that sort of goes towards him
sort of comes towards me in the same way.
So I just put it down, you know.
I mean, it's not meant to be sort of biting,
it's just meant to be, we hope, subtle, you know.
I didn't want to sort of appear, you know, we hate you.
It's a strange way of [D#] saying, you know, there you go.
I don't mind criticism at all.
I mean, everybody has to take criticism.
It's just that during the year, I think I had my own fair share of bitchiness,
which I really can't stand.
For [G] example, I played on Leslie Duncan's album,
and I was knocked out to be able to play on it.
And one reviewer of the record in a pop paper said,
well, even though Elton John is on the record,
it still manages to be quite good.
And this, you know, I really got sort of browned off with this.
And there was one point in the year when I got very depressed,
because I wasn't getting criticism, I was getting bitchiness,
you know, and I can't take that.
But do people in your position of your popularity really listen to what the critics say?
Do you need to?
Um, I think most people in the business read the pop papers, yeah.
I do.
Um, I think that, yeah, I think, you know, I used to be very, very sensitive.
Now criticism, I think, can help.
I don't mind constructive criticism, album criticism, stage criticism,
or anything like that, because I think it's valid criticism.
I was just sort of said to Bernie, listen,
I'm fed up because I was really the person to hate for about three months.
And I just, I said, you know, just write something about it.
Um, you know, you have to expect it.
It's just a sort of a way of getting back without being too nasty, you know.
I think, I think the kids know what they like.
And, uh, I mean, they're going to go out and buy an album by somebody if they like them anyway,
regardless of what the criticism is.
And I think they make up their own minds.
I don't [F#] think, you know, an album criticism really guides the [G] kids too much.
I don't know.
I don't think it might do.
It doesn't really matter.
I don't know.
The album stands up on its own.
A lot of people have said that you've done too much in the past year,
that you've made yourself too available to the public.
Do you feel that?
You've done a lot of tours in America.
Well, I haven't made myself very available to the public over here,
which probably counts against me a bit.
Um, I've done four tours of the States, but then saw Geoffrey O'Toole,
and ten years after, and The Faces.
In fact, The Faces have done more tours than I have.
Um, I've done a tour of the whole world, which nobody else has done.
I've sort of been around the whole bit.
Um, I have done it.
It's amazing how much you can do in a year.
I mean, we've made about 8,000 albums.
No, we've made about two albums this year.
And, uh_
But there have been four released.
Yes, but you see, that was an unfortunate point in my career.
You see, the Tumbleweed album was the first hit album over here.
And then it sparked off the Elton John album,
which had been lying dormant for about six months.
So they both came up together, which everybody who'd bought the Elton John album
thought they both came out at the same time.
And then Paramount Pictures,
who we'd signed to do the film Friends for,
to write the music before we'd even made it,
put this album out.
They thought, oh, Elton John writing on the Crest of Wave,
we'll slam an album out and put Elton John on the front of the album cover
and a middle print from the film Friends.
And we couldn't really do anything about that
because that was one of the things we'd agreed to do before we made it.
And they put that out in March, when the film wasn't even released.
[F] And then we had the live album,
which I must admit was me panicking a bit
because there were so many bootlegs of it going out in the States
because it was a live radio broadcast.
So we lost half the sales that way.
We lost a lot of sales.
And we learn by our mistakes.
I think everybody learns by our mistakes.
But I haven't been doing press interviews or anything.
_ I don't think the latter part of the year,
I haven't exactly flooded the people with [Em] Elton John.
Because we had to just call a stop
and [F#] we left a sensible gap before we [N] put another album out.
And it's very hard.
At one point I had four albums in the American Top 40.
My first reaction was,
Oh, goody, goody, gumdrops, I've got four albums, yippee.
And then all of a sudden I thought,
Oh, four albums, yeah.
And it does work against you.
And we're just having to sort of pick up.
It really hasn't affected us so much in America
as I think it will do over here.
So we're really having to start working really hard again over here.
Probably because of all those albums and tours of the States,
the word hype is occasionally associated with you.
Does that hurt?
It hurts because everyone thinks,
it's a fallacy to think I'm an overnight sensation.
_ Probably in the States I was, yes.
But I wasn't a hype.
I refute that because we made it.
And the only reason I made it there
because of one appearance in one club
and that really sort of spread throughout the whole country.
But over here people thought I was a hype
because they thought I was an overnight sort of person.
But in fact, I've been making records,
like Lady Samantha was two years out before the Elton John album
and then we had the Empty Sky album.
And we've been building a prestige thing,
word of mouth thing for about a couple of years.
So really, I refute that.
No, it does hurt to be called a hype
because I don't think I am a sort of hype.
I associate a hype, an obvious hype,
with something like Brinsley Schwartz
where when they were subjected to that awful thing
where everyone was flown over to New York,
which really did do the group some immense harm,
which is a shame because I think they're probably
one of the best groups we've got. _
And they've had to struggle two years, I think now,
to get over that.
That, I think, is a hype.
We just happened overnight in success in America.
No one was more surprised than me.
And over here people thought,
Oh God, what's happening here?
It's strange.
What's going to happen next year then?
Are you changing tactics or_?
Well, I've got a guitarist, thank God, in the band
who I've been trying, well, I've been wanting to get for ages.
And he'll be joining.
I can't say who it is yet.
But we're doing an album all together,
the group's the four of us, in France.
And it'll be, hopefully, a sort of return to the empty sky sort of thing.
I [G] want to do some more_
I've got some rock and roll things written
and I want to put them down.
It'll probably be a simpler Elton John album.
I hope so, anyway.
And then we're going to be touring over here.
And the only one tour of the States next year.
We have more control over what we're doing.
I want to produce, you know.
I've got some artists I'd like to produce and write.
We haven't had a chance to write.
I don't know how people get the chance to write songs.
The only thing I've written this year is Madman.
Whereas the year before I wrote about three albums with the material.
It's very worrying.
It's not worrying, it's just you don't get a chance to do anything.
Bernie, Elton, thank you very much.
Thanks very much.
[N] _