Too Low For Zero, stylised as 2 ▼ 4 0 on the album cover, is Elton John’s seventeenth studio album, released on 30 May 1983. The album featured several hit singles, including I’m Still Standing, Kiss the Bride, and especially the worldwide hit I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues. The album was a solid commercial comeback for Elton John, who had struggled to replicate his former success for a while prior to its release.
His previous four albums had failed overall to yield enduring international hit singles. His album sales had been disappointing with a huge and continuing drop-down compared to his records from the first half of the 1970s. In fairness, this is an insanely high benchmark. In his golden years, most of his albums were huge hits, spawned huge hits, and earned Gold and Platinum awards around the world.
In fact, the run of success that Elton John had from 1970 to 1975 was nothing short of phenomenal. He regularly went to the top on both sides of the Atlantic, having no less than seven albums in a row reach #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Charts during this period.
His success had in all likelihood reached a level where it wasn’t sustainable, and even with a bit less success things could have been peachy. However, things seemed to grind to a screeching halt after 1976’s Blue Moves, a double album that was critically panned and commercially disappointing. In truth, Elton John was in need of a break, and he ended up announcing his retirement from performing in 1977.
It was undoubtedly smart to take a time-out, at least from a personal perspective. He had been extraordinarily busy for the entire decade, with the pressure continually on – to write the next hit, to deliver the next multi-million selling album, to put on even more extravagant shows with even more outlandish outfits than last time. He made himself available to the press who got an enormous amount of interviews from him over this time, and he still had to cope with photographers and journalists all the time. It was never enough, and it got to the point when they weren’t wanted or welcomed. He also had to hide who he was on a personal level. And, all of the above are just the obvious things. Life had been lived in the fast lane, and there had been few breaks and time-outs for Elton John. There is no doubt that he needed one.
This also meant the team started breaking up. His trusty and stalwart backing band who had helped turn his first run of albums into classics could not afford to sit inactive, and went on to pastures new. John’s incredible lyricist and writing partner since the beginning, Bernie Taupin, also moved on to work with other people, including Alice Cooper for whom he contributed lyrics to the entire From the Inside abum in 1978.
“I came off the road in 1976, and I didn’t do anything that had to do with music at all,” John told Mal Reding in 1983. “For two years I did nothing, because I didn’t want to. I’d had enough.”
Elton John returned with the album A Single Man in 1978, now collaborating with lyricist Gary Osborne. His first album in two years produced no Top 20 singles in the US, but saw some UK success. Next year’s disco-influenced album Victim of Love fared worse and was poorly received everywhere.
He did not know it when he returned in 1978, but this would be the start of a five-year period of increasingly disappointing sales and chart performances, during which John wrote and played with several different musical partners.
He gradually started bringing back Taupin from 1980 onward, who initially contributed lyrics to a few songs on each album. Some former band members were also slowly but surely reintroduced.
The trend was still worrying, and by 1983, the pressure to deliver was immense. Geffen Records had been especially disappointed with the sales of John’s previous two albums (1981’s The Fox and 1982’s Jump Up!) and were reportedly very open with the artist about that disappointment. “I didn’t like the look of any of it,” he wrote in his autobiography Me with typical understatement.
A master plan was needed. It helped that by this time, everything seemed to come together. He took up full-time working with Bernie Taupin again. “We both knew that we wanted to work together again, but we had to wait until it just fell into place,” Taupin told Music Connection in 1989. “We knew that when the time was right it would just happen. Like everything else in our careers, we don’t pressure it. We just allow time to elapse until things fall into place, and that’s how it happened.”
They were also able to put the full, classic Elton John Band lineup together, including drummer Nigel Olsson, bassist Dee Murray, and guitarist Davey Johnstone. He also reconnected with previous collaborators like Ray Cooper, Kiki Dee, and Skaila Kanga (who played harp on John’s self-titled album and Tumbleweed Connection).
The new album would be recorded at Beatles producer George Martin’s AIR Studios in Montserrat (where John had previously recorded Jump Up!), with later overdubs done at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood.
The album was produced by Chris Thomas. He had also been contracted to produce the debut album of up-and-coming Scottish rock band Big Country during the same time. For a short while he did a half-hearted attempt at doing double duty, but it was quickly felt by the Big Country camp that he prioritized the Elton John gig, mostly leaving his assistant Steve Churchyard to work on details with Big Country. This impression may not have been totally incorrect, and Thomas was let go by the band and their management in less than a month. This was no doubt the best outcome for everybody involved. Big Country ended up working with Steve Lillywhite, who helped them get a global hit album with The Crossing, while Chris Thomas was fully free to focus on Elton John’s album.
In addition to record company pressure to deliver, the project also got some time pressure when the sessions got off to a late start. “I got into Montserrat a week late,” Elton John told Mal Reding in 1983. “Everyone was sitting there, drumming their fingers. I stayed over to watch some football games. And when I got there, the pressure was good, because I really had to write and record exactly like I used to, like with the Elton John album and Tumbleweed Connection album. In other words, we had two weeks to do the album – and we did it. That seems to be the way I thrive and I work best.”
The Elton John Band quickly fell back into their established and effective way of working. It sounds incredible, but the album was not just written, but also recorded in just two weeks, with additional overdubs completed in a further week. Individual ideas likely did exist prior to the Montserrat sessions, but were put together and completed as songs there.
One factor that may have helped speed up proceedings was Elton John’s embracing of synthesizers and the opportunities of new technologies. He had used them on A Simple Man in 1978, but to a much smaller extent. John discovered that synths allowed him to write better fast rock songs, having previously not been entirely happy with such compositions performed on piano.
“All the songs were written on synthesizer,” he told radio DJ Paul Gambaccini in 1984. “My biggest hang-up has been writing rock ‘n’ roll songs; I’m not very good at it, because if you’re a pianist, it’s a totally different concept [compared to] playing guitar. It’s very hard to write three-chord songs on a piano. So I get this synthesizer, which sounds like a guitar on some parts, and I can write three-chord songs all of a sudden.”
This definitely makes the album more varied. It also brought Elton John fully into the 1980s with a reinvention not too dissimilar to what David Bowie did at the same time with Let’s Dance.
It is telling, though, that the most enduring song on the album turned out to be one of the piano-based songs. I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues is the big ballad, and Elton looked to band member Davy Johnstone for input on the music. It turned out to be one of the easiest songs to put together.
“He [Elton John] showed me Taupin’s lyric, and I went ‘Oh, what a beautiful lyric,'” Johnstone told Rolling Stone. “We wrote the song right there in about 20 minutes. Elton said, ‘That’s it. Let’s record it.’ The next day, I think, we invited the whole band in the room. We played them the song and we proceeded to record it and that was it. I mean, when you start with a lyric like that, you’re already halfway there.”
Don’t wish it away
Don’t look at it like it’s forever
Between you and me I could honestly say
That things can only get betterAnd while I’m away
Dust out the demons inside
And it won’t be long before you and me run
To the place in our hearts where we hideAnd I guess that’s why they call it the blues
Time on my hands could be time spent with you
Laughing like children, living like lovers
Rolling like thunder under the covers
And I guess that’s why they call it the blues
The heartfelt lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin during the group’s stay in Montserrat. The song was a love letter to his wife at the time, Toni Russo (the sister of the actress Rene Russo). In the album credits, Bernie added the small note “Hey Toni, this one’s for you.”
Taupin later said, “Basically, it’s a letter home with a small tip included about making the most of time, not wishing it away just because you can’t be with the one you love. Time is precious; read books, paint a picture, bake a cake. Just don’t wallow, don’t be content.”
The song has a lovely sentiment that everyone can recognise. Elton John certainly fell for the song, citing it as his favourite song on the album in an interview with Rolling Stone, “It’s just a great song to sing. It’s timeless.”
For all its merits, the song contains one of the few lyrics that Bernie Taupin regrets writing. According to Songfacts, he said: “The whole ‘loving you more than I love life itself’ is something I would never say now. It’s kind of a crass sentiment and totally false. It’s quite another thing to love someone deeply with your whole heart without stooping to this kind of lie. I loathe giving songwriting advice, but were I pushed, I’d say, ‘Never say you love someone more than life or that you’d die for someone in a song.’ It’s just such a disservice to your own spirit. I’d like to think that I’d lay down my life for my children, but until you’re faced with the reality, it’s kind of a moot point. Rambling, I know, but relative nonetheless.”
Just stare into space
Picture my face in your hands
Live for each second without hesitation
And never forget I’m your man
Wait on me girl
Cry in the night if it helps
But more than ever I simply love you
More than I love life itself
It is understandable that a writer would want to avoid phrases they feel are clichéd or not up to scratch, but I feel Taupin is too critical of himself in this case. The notion of laying down your life for someone is poetic license, and can be written about independent of an individual’s actual follow-through. Some people have done it, so the concept does exist in this world. Even if Taupin personally feels dishonest about the phrase’s use, I have personally always found the sentiment in that part of the song incredibly touching.
The song also features a lovely harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder, who added his contribution during the overdub sessions in Hollywood. Initially, Elton John and producer Chris Thomas had differing opinions on whether a harmonica was the right instrument to use for the solo. “Chris saw a harmonica solo on that song, which I didn’t,” Elton John told radio DJ John Gambaccini in 1984. “No way. I thought he must be joking. And then when I left him to get on with it … I said, ‘I don’t fancy a harmonica solo. Maybe a sax solo, or something like that.’ But he was absolutely right, and he got Stevie to do it. He did it first-take brilliant, and it worked.”
I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues was quickly earmarked to be one of the songs that would get a huge singles push from the album. It was released as the first UK single from the album in April 1983. The US had to wait half a year later, as something more up-tempo was felt to be more suitable to return with in that market. That meant America would get both I’m Still Standing (July 1983) and Kiss the Bride (October 1983) before they gave I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues a try in November. It ended up being the biggest success from the album in any case, reaching #4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as Australia and South Africa, #5 in UK, #9 in Canada, and a top 20 hit almost across the board.
Russell Mulcahy directed the music video for the song, and also ended up directing the I’m Still Standing video. The video is set in the 1950s with a loose storyline revolving around a young couple who are separated as the young man enters military service, and how they cope on each side until their planned return. It was partially filmed in the Rivoli Ballroom in London, with Elton John dressed up in a proper 50s outfit – and the hairstyle to match!
The Too Low For Zero album holds special meaning for Elton John. It signalled an end to the difficult years. It was great to have the old band together again, but primarily it reunited him with Taupin, who he kept collaborating with from there on out. It was also where he met his first spouse Renate Blauel, who was an engineer on the sessions.
The songs on the album ended up containing a varied mix of styles, with a lot more up-tempo material than recent efforts. A track like I’m Still Standing was especially important. “It sounded like the whole album’s calling card,” John wrote in his memoir, 2019’s Me. “The lyric was about one of Bernie’s exes, but I also thought it worked as a message to my new American record company – who were, quite frankly, turning out to be a terrible pain in the arse.[…] I’m Still Standing sounded like a warning shot across their bows. It was a big, swaggering, confident fuck-you of a song.”
No doubt it felt great to have not just one hit song again, but several from the same album, in addition to the album itself being exactly the huge success that it was hoped to be.
Too Low For Zero was released on 30 May 1983. It earned a Platinum certification by both the RIAA and the BPI, produced several hit singles accompanied by successful MTV music videos, and spent over a year on the Billboard album chart.
Elton John says he knew Too Low for Zero would be a hit, so much so he was willing to stake his livelihood on it. “I said to my manager, ‘If this one doesn’t happen, I will actually give up and become a greengrocer,'” he told Gambaccini. “It meant so much to me, because I thought the songs were strong, and the momentum there … coming in with the band.”
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