1973 was a very good year for Elton John. Eight months before the launch of the giant Bye bye, yellow cobbled roadthe British artist proposed the opus Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano player on which we find the successes crocodile rock and Daniel.
• Also read: Here are 10 stars who refuse to leave their millions as a legacy to their children
Released on January 23, 1973 in the UK and three days later in North America, this album, his sixth of his career, has just celebrated his 50th birthday.
Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player set the table for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, on which we find the title track and the mighty Bennie and the Jets, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting and Candle in the Wind.
When Elton John returned to France’s Château d’Hérouville, where he had recorded Honky Château, he was at a loss. After five albums things weren’t going his way. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue and the next album could be his last chance.
Don’t shoot me I’m just the piano player lasting 43 minutes was a huge hit. It reached number one on the charts in Australia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
success
The single Crocodile Rock was number 1 in Canada and the United States. It was the first time an Elton John song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in Uncle Sam’s Country and also in Canada. This song, like all the others on this album, written by the duo Elton John and Bernie Taupin, was released a few months before the release of the opus Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player.
In a 2012 interview with Esquire magazine, Bernie Taupin said Crocodile Rock was a fun song he wrote, although he doesn’t want to hear it. Music lovers loved it enormously and it is still part of the songs he performs in concert 50 years later.
Crocodile Rock was inspired by the success of Australian band Daddy Cool’s song Eagle Rock, which sold a million copies in kangaroo country. Elton John heard this song during a group show in 1972 and was impressed.
Daniel
Daniel, the second track, also topped the Canadian charts and ranked second alongside our American neighbors. Bernie Taupin said he wrote the lyrics to this song after reading an article in Time Magazine. A short text stating that the soldiers returning from the Vietnam War were ordinary people who were mostly embarrassed by the adulation and hostility shown to them. “I wrote this song from the point of view of a young man who sees his big brother leave to escape from this situation. I chose Spain (Spain) because it rhymes with airplane (airplane),” he said in an interview published on the UDiscoverMusic website in February 2022.
Fun fact, the album’s title Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player comes from a line by Groucho Marx, who invited the pianist-singer to a party at his home in Los Angeles. The story goes that the American actor and comedian introduced him as John Elton and pointed his index and middle fingers at him as if it were a gun. Elton John reportedly raised his hands and said, “Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano player”.