Elton John

Blue Moves

Disc 1:
1.Your Starter For...
2.Tonight
3.One Horse Town
4.Chameleon
5.Boogie Pilgrim
6.Cage the Songbird
7.Crazy Water
8.Shoulder Holster

Disc 2:
1.Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word
2.Out of the Blue
3.Between Seventeen and Twenty
4.The Wide-Eyed and Laughing
5.Someone's Final Song
6.Where's the Shoorah?
7.If There's a God in Heaven
8.Idol
9.Theme From a Non-Existant TV Series
10.Bite Your Lip (Get Up andDance!)

BBlue Moves marked Elton John’s second foray into the double album format, but where Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was a triumph of cohesion, craft, and sheer melodic invention, this 1976 release more often feels like the result of fatigue wrapped in ambition. There are moments of brilliance—some of them genuinely affecting—but the album is weighed down by its excesses, both in length and in production.

It’s not hard to see what went wrong. Having weathered the pressures of fame and the increasingly bloated machinery around him, Elton emerges here sounding not revitalized, but spent. There’s a listlessness to much of Blue Moves, as if its creator were more concerned with meeting expectations than challenging them. The studio, once a playground, now feels more like a burden.

This is the Elton John of the Rock of the Westies period—backed again by a swollen band of seven players, with the added garnish of strings, horns, choirs, and no small amount of sonic oddities. The arrangements are dense, often cluttered, and the production seems determined to fill every available space. It’s telling that the album, overstuffed as it is, might have fared better pared down to a tight, emotionally-driven single LP.

Still, scattered among the debris are some truly exceptional moments. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word remains one of Elton’s finest ballads—introspective, sorrowful, and beautifully restrained. Tonight, a brooding eight-minute epic, is perhaps the album’s standout. A largely instrumental opening gives way to an aching vocal line, proving Elton had not lost his taste for elegance, even amidst the noise. Chameleon and Idol both show glimmers of former melodic precision, while One Horse Town and Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance!) remind us—if only briefly—that Elton could still rock when he wanted to. The latter, bordering on disco, overstays its welcome in the final minutes, but remains infectiously spirited.

Also worthy of mention are Where’s the Shoorah? and Someone’s Final Song—the former, strangely spiritual; the latter, morose but not without poignancy. These songs don’t aim for the charts, and perhaps that’s their greatest strength. Unfortunately, there’s much here that does little more than occupy space. Three instrumentals serve as examples of indulgence over intention—aimless rather than experimental. Side Two of the original vinyl release is especially forgettable, a collection of sketches that neither move nor inspire.

In many ways, Blue Moves marked the close of a chapter. It was Elton’s final album with lyricist Bernie Taupin for several years, and it plays like an elegy to their first era together—ambitious, uneven, exhausted. Not a disaster, but certainly not a triumph. A flawed record, but an honest one—tired, yes, but still capable of moments that echo the brilliance of earlier years.

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