Elton John

Friends (1970)

1.Friends
2.Honey Roll
3.Seasons
4.Variation on Michelle's Song (A Day in the Country)
5.Can I Put You On
6.Michelle's Song
7.Variation on Friends
8.I Meant to do My Work Today (A Day in the Country)
9.Four Moods
10.Seasons Reprise

Between Tumbleweed Connection and the global breakthrough that would follow, Elton John and Bernie Taupin briefly stepped into the world of film. The project in question was Friends, a 1971 Paramount picture that has since lapsed into near-total obscurity—an adolescent romance, part whimsical, part maudlin, chronicling the tender (and slightly awkward) bond between an English boy and a French girl. It was the sort of coming-of-age narrative that studios occasionally embraced at the turn of the decade, though rarely with lasting success.

Elton and Bernie agreed to score the film—a decision later viewed with some ambivalence. It was, perhaps, a logical experiment. Yet the restrictions of writing for cinema proved creatively inhibiting, and the final product was one they seldom referenced with pride. Even so, the result is by no means poor. Rather, it stands as a curious and often overlooked chapter in their early catalogue—a transitional work, of sorts.

Musically, Friends is less a traditional album than a hybrid: part pop record, part film score. Only four tracks conform to the familiar Elton/Bernie structure. The rest are instrumentals or brief motifs designed to accompany specific scenes. Paul Buckmaster again handles the arrangements, and while his orchestrations here lack the grandeur of Elton John or Tumbleweed Connection, they remain tasteful and appropriately cinematic.

The title song, Friends, serves as the emotional centerpiece and is arguably the most enduring element of the album. Sweet without being saccharine, it captures the innocence of the film’s protagonists more successfully than the film itself. Michelle’s Song, though modest in scale, is affecting—a gentle, piano-led ballad that foreshadows the stripped-back poignancy Elton would revisit in later years. Less connected to the film, and musically more vibrant, are Honey Roll and Can I Put You On—both inserted late in production and bearing little relation to the narrative. They are, essentially, surplus studio tracks grafted onto the soundtrack, and while this reveals the ad hoc nature of the project, they nonetheless inject much-needed energy. The latter, in particular, is a standout—a brisk, minor-key rocker that found a second life in live performances.

The rest of the album is functional score material: lush, brief, and frequently forgettable, though always competently rendered. It is here that the constraints of the medium are most obvious. With no lyrical anchor and limited musical development, these pieces fade into the background—as they were intended to do—but add little for the listener approaching this as a standalone record.

Despite its limited success, Friends did receive an initial vinyl release in 1971, though not through DJM, Elton's then-label. As a result, it was poorly promoted, quickly remaindered, and almost immediately out of print. For years, the album languished in the bargain bins, only to be resurrected decades later as part of the Rare Masters collection, where it remains its most accessible form.

Ultimately, Friends is not an essential Elton John release, but it is a revealing one. It captures a moment when Elton and Bernie, not yet bound by stardom, experimented with a new format—and discovered its limitations. What remains is a modest, occasionally beautiful, and largely forgotten footnote to one of pop’s most formidable early runs.

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