Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player (1973)
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The realisation that this is my favourite Elton John album came to me as I was listening to it on my way to work this morning.
For once, I was able to listen to an entire album while in the car. I’d been a little late, having stopped by my sister’s house to pick up breakfast, comprising half a loaf of spirulina and seaweed bread and another half a loaf of raisin bread. As a result, I was caught in a traffic jam, which I didn’t mind at all as I got to listen to all of the Don’t Shoot Me album, the last song “High Flying Bird” ending just as I reversed my car into the parking space on Level 7 in the office car park.
The best known song from the album is of course “Crocodile Rock”, a piece of nostalgia that was a big hit in the early 70s long before nostalgia was an “in” thing. Released in 1972, it peaked at #1 in the US hit charts and #5 in the UK hit charts.
Besides “Crocodile Rock”, there was also “Daniel”, a song about a blind boy (“Daniel, my brother, you are older than me / Do you still feel the pain, of the scars that won’t heal / Your eyes have died, but you see more than I / Daniel, you’re a star in the face of the sky”) that still gives me the shivers whenever I hear it.
But for me, the most poignant song on the album is “High Flying Bird”, with this line “I saw it as you flew between my reason”. Saw what? Doesn’t matter. What matters is “you flew between my reason”.
*sigh* Quite a few people have flown between my reason in the years since I first heard that song, it’s a surprise I’m still sane. *laugh*
But I digress …
I have both the original vinyl version as well as the CD of this favourite Elton John album. In fact, I have the original vinyl and CD versions of quite a few Elton John albums. The vinyls were bought by my brother in the early 70s and when CDs became popular, it became (and still is) a pastime of mine to look for CD versions of what’s in our vinyl collection.
Our vinyl collection … yes – he bought some, and I bought some, so that makes it a shared collection.
The Chin & Chin vinyl collection is a collection of LPs (Long Play – anything more than 5 or 6 songs on each side), EPs (Extended Play – a total of four songs, 2 on each side), and SPs (Single Play – only two songs, 1 on each side). At some point, there were even maxi EPs comprising 3 songs on each side, making for a total of 6 songs but I don’t think we have any of those in our collection. We do have some double albums – 2 LPs in one, probably cuz one LP couldn’t hold more than 12 songs in total (hey, there are double CDs these days, too!) – as well as triple albums – three come to mind, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (my very first album bought with ang pow money more than 30 years ago), Jesus Christ Superstar Original London Cast (a gift from a dear friend still in my life), and the Bee Gees’ Collection (which my brother had to get after seeing it at the airport in the hands of one of the guys from the Bee Gees’ entourage when they came for their first concert in 1971; and yes, we saw in the flesh the Gibb Brothers, and Lulu, who was married to Maurice at the time), which I think is no longer available.
Hmm … where was I? Oh, I’ve digressed so much this time.
Anyway, here’s the full song list from Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player:
1. “Daniel”
2. “Teacher I Need You”
3. “Elderberry Wine”
4. “Blues for My Baby and Me”
5. “Midnight Creeper”
6. “Have Mercy on the Criminal”
7. “I’m Gonna Be a Teenage Idol”
8. “Texas Love Song”
9. “Crocodile Rock”
10. “High Flying Bird”
Click here to listen to samples of some of the above songs.
BTW, the digitally remastered version shown on the linked page features four additional songs not on my version, of which only one, “Skyline Pigeon”, I’m familiar with.
Enjoy …
