GEORGE MICHAEL AND ELTON JOHN – "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me"

Pete, I think the George Michael EP you might be thinking of comes a couple of years later, but I’ll say no more here. I’ll give this 4.

#2 i’m not sure if he was out before, but he certainly was after the sun’s bizarre and relentless crusade against him a couple of years before. best SHAME claim: that he had cut the tongues out of his guard dogs so they’re barking didn’t disturb him while he was committing ACTS OF SHAME.

A re-tread of a performance from Live Aid, where Elton wheeled George out (whilst Andrew Ridgely gamely provided backing vocals with Kiki Dee), rather than the other way around. I can imagine it went over well at Live Aid, as a good celebrity cameo. For me, it doesn’t work here because the song is too long and, I would say, pretty over-wrought. Lyrically, it seems pretty obvious: “losing everything is like the sun going down on me”. Really? Losing everything – including your life – would indeed be like the metaphorical sun going down on you.

3 seems reasonable – I might stretch to 4 as the chorus (musically at least) is pretty good. But the tempo and the length do give it the feel of a wade through treacle.

Re-reading my entry – must find new adjective/adverb. Clearly grammar not a strong suit.

If anything, the original is more turgid and pedestrian.

On the subject of George coming out – wasn’t Outside the “coming out” record? So 1998.

In 1991 it is probably fair to say that neither George Michael nor Elton John had a clear idea of who they were or what they wanted. Listen Without Prejudice Volume One painted a portrait of someone increasingly turning back into himself, as the young and insecure Yorgos would have turned away towards the window on the outside seat of his school bus. The famous Weegee beach crowd shot which supplied the album’s cover signified everything George wasn’t, or didn’t want to be; the very light which, as the words of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” have it, blinded him.

The record did well enough, but only a fraction of the business that Faith had done, unsurprisingly in view of its heavily signposted message of wanting to be left alone. Unsure about where to go next, but also in part because of a long court battle with his record company (the second in his career – he was beginning to develop a reputation for being difficult in this respect), George would not release another album of new material for a further six years, and instead busied himself with cameo appearances, charity functions, helping out on Andrew Ridgeley’s ill-fated solo album Son Of Albert, and releasing the occasional, random single (“Too Funky”). Elton, meanwhile, had not quite yet become British pop’s officially-approved National Institution.

George’s concert appearances at this time were pointedly and wholly comprised of sets of cover versions; perhaps out of a lack of confidence in his own work, possibly to stop Sony from making any more actual money out of him, but audiences were baffled and disappointed. While recognising the direct link between “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” and “Killer,” it still seemed like stadium karaoke. But it was from one of these concerts, at Wembley Stadium, that his reading of “Don’t Let The Sun,” with Elton guesting, stemmed; a repeat of their 1985 Live Aid duet.

The single – another multifocal charity fundraiser – was an immediate transatlantic number one, as opposed to Elton’s 1974 original which, in Britain, peaked at a relatively modest #16 (though its parent album Caribou was a huge seller). While not wishing to exaggerate the parallels between Elton and Nick Drake, “Don’t Let The Sun,” even with (or because of?) its lush orchestration and Beach Boy backing vocals, seems to me Elton’s direct equivalent of “Black-Eyed Dog.” Some commentators persist with the what-if scenario of “Northern Sky” being the huge international hit instead of “Your Song” but this is naively wishful thinking; Elton and Nick were the same age and both began as troubled, sensitive singer/songwriters – the distance between Empty Sky and Bryter Layter really doesn’t exist – but Elton, though essentially an intensely shy person, strived to be more outgoing and was undeniably better at putting his name about and better at dealing with people in general, whereas Drake, a decade before Asperger’s syndrome was formally recognised as a legitimate medical condition, couldn’t cope with people at all and, in the end, not even with himself. Still, “Don’t Let The Sun” in its original form represents a desperate plea for rescue from drowning (“Frozen here on the ladder of my life/It’s much too late to save myself from falling”) and death; a would-be Other, frightened by his intensity, has shut him out (“But you misread my meaning”) and he doubles his anti-suicidal screams, demands that she – or he – recognise his pain. “Don’t discard me just because you think I mean you harm/But these cuts I have/They need love to help them heal.” But at the same time he recognises that his huge dependency may also create a prison for his Other (“I’d just allow a fragment of your life to wander free”).

As it turned out, those suicidal ideations were real, as gruellingly demonstrated on 1975’s slow release catharsis of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” (and the “someone” in real life was, of all people, Long John Baldry, who talked his mind out of the gas oven). So it is both puzzling and disturbing to hear George and Elton’s enthusiastic audience a generation later screaming their approval, as though “Don’t Let The Sun” were simply an upmarket “Puppy Love.”

Nevertheless the idea of performing the song as a duet is intriguing, mainly because structurally it can now be read as the story seen from both perspectives, and that the Other’s mind is just as confused and messed up as the original singer’s. And George’s is the greater vocal performance here, and may even join some Donny Osmond dots; the range and truthfulness of his delivery – note the emphasis he puts on the final “to wander free” – far exceed that of Elton, who seems content to improvise melismatics around George rather than sing the actual song. An interesting concept, then, which doesn’t quite come off and certainly didn’t move either of its singers any further towards discovering what – or whom – they actually wanted; they dutifully searched themselves but still saw someone else.

Going to have to differ with most of you on this – I don’t join in with the game of giving marks out of 10, but this would be a lot higher than 3 with me. Only a UK number 16 hit in 1974 in the original version, and kept off the US number one by a combination of John Denver and Roberta Flack, this always struck me as a beautiful stately song that deserved to be taken at its own leisurely pace, with one of Bernie’s more poetic lyrics, although you rarely get such a combination of poetry and singalongability. I always thought 16 in the UK severely undervalued the merits of the record, and this felt like due payback.

Elton had been the severely shocked-looking figure introducing the BBC’s Freddie Mercury tribute programme on the day of Mercury’s death, and this was the most opportune of times for an AIDS charity-related single to chart. As someone remarked, for several years the victims of AIDS were unknown to most of us, then in 1985 there was a victim known to millions in Rock Hudson, and now an even bigger star had gone and public perception was ripe for change.

Agree with Chelovek that any of George Michael’s singles from “Listen Without Prejudice” would have been deserved big hits – my fiancée was a big fan of George’s since schooldays and we both thought every moment of the album was quality – but if he wasn’t going to get to the top with them, this one would do nicely. From the audience reception, it’s clearly an exercise in giving the people what they want. If LWP had performed better critically than commercially, this was a pretty good way of reinforcing his profile.

I’m sure that no useful object has ever been made of wood and tin. Elton is woody and solid and George is by comparison, tinny and hollow. Put them together and all you have are two components of an object that serves no practical purpose. I’ll give credit to a knowledgable audience that recognises a dreary gospel-lite almost-hit from 1974 (and the audience’s reaction fools us into thinking the song was a major player in Elton’s squad, when it’s really just a b-teamer) George adds nothing of value to DLTSGDOM, indeed the two of them seem to be competing to wring every last drop of emotion from such a damp sponge of a song, into a wooden handled billy-can.

@21 ‘I’m sure that no useful object has ever been made of wood and tin’: Pshaw! And pshaw again!

I’m with swanstep on the slow start; nothing wrong with that per se. And I don’t mind this; the chorus is pleasant without being particularly compelling, and the performances are neither’s worst. 5 from me.

@3: I always thought Elton John was pretty huge in the late ’80s, but maybe some of that was the Aussie perspective: his tour and live recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra were a big deal locally a few years earlier.

#27 – Although he did feature in a South Bank Show profile on the eve of the album’s release, so he didn’t dodge interviews totally.

@pink champale, 23. Heh, well I guess I asked for that didn’t I! (I originally intended to use ‘Air that I breathe’ as a fairer/less hyperbolic-seeming comparison, but when I checked it, the big chorus you seem to wait and wait for nonetheless arrives before the 2 min mark…. so StS it was).

I wasn’t sure why this was such a hit at the time and still find it underwhelming. Is this the first ‘live’ number 1?

Yeah and “The Specials AKA Live”, “Gamblin’ Man”, “The Wonder of You”, “My Old Man’s A Dustman” and possibly “Shaddap You Face”. Bunny prevents me naming the other two, especially on this thread.

This record is a ton better than their other duet, “Wrap her up”

Hilarious: It sounds like two gay men, both trying to convince the other that they are as hetero as the next guy. What were they thinking, really?

An unusual hit. In America George Michael’s popularity had begun its slow slide, while Elton was scoring fair to middling hits until the comeback of The One and The Lion King soundtrack. I’d rather have seen “Too Funky” or George’s other surprisingly vital post-house dance tracks from the Red Hot and Rio comp at #1.

#27 George definitely catches up in bunnyable form in 1996. I think so anyway.

This is an overblown rendition of an already pretty puffy song, but I’m keen on it. I suppose I always had a lot of time for the two chaps – and that “Ladies and Gentlemen – Mr Elton John!” is now a required precursor to any of Reg’s appearances to this day, around my way at least. They make good sense of the song’s hooks, attacking the highs with gusto, and the long withheld release of the chorus makes my heart swell. Yeah, I’m a sucker.

My favourite “holding back the chorus” number is Sinead O’Connor’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, which takes the entire song to get to what isn’t really a chorus; little more than the title. I’m always intrigued to hear where it’s going even though I know.

Personally I really like the original. For me, it’s always packed more of an emotional punch than most of Reg’s ballads, but the bombastic showbiz-y nature of this version leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s still worth a 6 though.

As I recall, Elton’s next single, The One, was virtually a re-write of this..

#41 I’m hurrying up, don’t worry!

There are certain moments in songs that are ones I really…well *enjoy* isn’t the term, I think…they are gratuitous but in their gratuity there is a moment where a torch of sorts is being handed over; and so it is here. When George introduces Elton it’s one of those times when I just have to stop and smile, even if to myself – both of them embody the song, in their histories (past and present and indeed future) and this feels more like a confessional with two people rather than one. The showbiz here is just this becoming public…in some ways it feels more European than British, as if the song would make more sense *emotionally* if sung in French or Spanish, for instance. Neither of these singers has a ‘side’ so to speak, and that gets emphasized here.

#40 – actually, the best bit about the “Ladies and Gentleman, Mr Elton John!” line for me is the fact that the piano immediately kicks in afterwards with that doomy, recurring line. It’s the kind of melody you hear whenever a baddie enters the room in a rubbish old B-movie, or in an episode of “Batman”.

#3: by 1991 george had already created more far more pop greatness than Elton ever had or would

Oh come on. I can understand a fair amount of generational antipathy towards certain artists (I have it myself) and iconoclastic statement-making but that’s just too silly.

#48 – That’s probably the other reason I’m struggling with the prevailing tone of this Popular entry, actually. The weight of Elton’s output is mighty, and without question there’s some serious rubbish in his back catalogue, but during his imperial phase he surely topped George Michael’s best material? Has George ever come up with anything better than “Rocket Man”, “Daniel”, “Crocodile Rock”, or “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”? He may have equalled the quality of those tracks on a few occasions, but I think it’s pushing it to argue he was a far better artist – especially as Elton’s recording contract in the seventies required him to produce material at a rate I doubt George Michael would ever manage to get his head around.