Tiny Dancer
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"Tiny Dancer" is a 1971 song by Elton John with lyrics by Bernie Taupin, which appears on John's fifth album, Madman Across the Water. It is the best known track on that album, and considered by many Elton John fans to be one of his greatest songs.
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[edit] History
"Tiny Dancer" features a well-remembered piano-based melody during verses, typically inscrutable Taupin lyrics during the chorus, and an arrangement that at the start features pedal steel guitar and light percussion but, transitioning subtly halfway through one of the choruses, by the end is driven by Paul Buckmaster's dynamic strings, along with a barely heard backing choir. Clocking at 6:13, it was one of the longer radio singles of that period.
The song was written about Maxine Feibelmann, a dancer on Elton John's tour who later married Taupin. (Later, the song from the Elton John album Blue Moves called "Between Seventeen and Twenty" referred to the divorce of Bernie and Maxine Taupin and the fact that so much had changed from when they first met when he was aged twenty and she was aged seventeen.)
A non-starter as a single at the time (reaching only No. 41 in the U.S. pop chart and not charting at all in the UK), "Tiny Dancer" did not fade away, but instead slowly became one of Elton John's most popular songs. A fixture on adult contemporary radio stations, but played by rock stations as well, the song simply grew in popularity.
It was ranked #387 on the 2004 List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
[edit] Use in popular culture
Tiny Dancer is one of the songs featured at the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas. Along with John's "Bennie and the Jets", "Tiny Dancer" appears prominently in the 1970s movie Aloha, Bobby and Rose as well as in the 1990s film My Girl 2. The song received an additional boost in popularity in 2000 after appearing in a memorable scene in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, where it is played over the sound system of a tour bus and no one can resist the urge to sing along to the chorus. Elton John has attested to the film's popularization of the song, saying in 2004, "I hadn't played it much until Cameron Crowe put it in Almost Famous. [Now] We get more requests for it than anything else."[1]
"Tiny Dancer" was also referred to by Rihanna in her 2006 hit single "SOS", and used in the closing scene of the episode "The Dundies" in the television series The Office. The song figures prominently in "The Americanization of Ivan," a 1980 episode of the television series, WKRP in Cincinnati.
[edit] Other versions
"Tiny Dancer" was covered by John Frusciante when playing a solo with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, by Dave Grohl on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, by Ben Folds on his 2002 album Ben Folds Live, and by Tim McGraw in 2002 in a somewhat countrified version that he performed with Elton at the 2002 American Music Awards.
A sample of the "Tiny Dancer" chorus also makes a memorable appearance in a mash-up by Girl Talk called "Smash Your Head" (from the 2006 album Night Ripper).
[edit] Lyrical confusion
A pseudo-mondegreen, "Hold me closer, Tony Danza. . ." is becoming a popular inside joke [1] [2], despite the song predating the actor's fame by 7 years. The joke originated when the Phoebe character on the television series Friends was asked what her favorite love song was and she responded "The one Elton John wrote about the guy from Who's the Boss ... you know... [begins singing] Hold me closer Tony Danza..."
Ironically, it is in the last two lines of the chorus, not the title line, that many people have trouble discerning the actual words. What people hear as:
- Lay me down and she's a blender
- You had a visitor today.
or something else as unlikely or unrecognisable. The actual lyrics are as follows:
- Lay me down in sheets of linen
- You had a busy day today.
[edit] Lyrics
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
Jesus freaks out in the street Handing tickets out for God Turning back she just laughs The boulevard is not that bad
Piano man he makes his stand In the auditorium Looking on she sings the songs The words she knows, the tune she hums
But oh how it feels so real Lying here with no one near Only you and you can't hear me When I say softly, slowly
Hold me closer tiny dancer Count the headlights on the highway Lay me down in sheets of linen you had a busy day today
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand
[edit] References
- ^ Features: The Rocket Man Blasts Off. by Dave Karger, Entertainment Weekly. (2004-11-05). Retrieved on February 21, 2007.
