Tiny Dancer
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| “Tiny Dancer” | |||||
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| Single by Elton John from the album Madman Across the Water |
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| B-side | "Razor Face" | ||||
| Released | February 7, 1972 | ||||
| Format | vinyl record (7") | ||||
| Recorded | Trident Studios | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 3:38 (Single)
6:17 (Album) |
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| Label | Uni (US/Canada) DJM Records |
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| Writer(s) | Elton John, Bernie Taupin | ||||
| Producer | Gus Dudgeon | ||||
| Elton John singles chronology | |||||
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"Tiny Dancer" is a 1971 song by Elton John with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. It appears on John's fifth album, Madman Across the Water.
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[edit] History
The song features a 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 the period.
While "Tiny Dancer" was initially a non-starter as a single – reaching only #41 on the U.S. pop chart and not charting at all in the UK – the song slowly became one of John's most popular songs. A fixture on adult contemporary and rock radio stations, the song 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 scene in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, where it is played over the sound system of a tour bus as everyone is sitting tensely after their lead guitarist embarrassed them in public. As the song plays, eventually no one can resist the urge to sing along to the chorus as the riders reconcile. 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] An instrumental reprise, performed by Nancy Wilson of Heart (Cameron Crowe's wife, and did the score for the film), can also be heard at the end of the movie where Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) visits William Miller (Patrick Fugit) at his home.
On an episode of Friends, Phoebe refers to Tiny Dancer and mistakes the lyrics: "Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer" for "Hold me closer, Tony Danza."
[edit] Other versions
"Tiny Dancer" has often been covered by John Frusciante since the early 1990s, 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 on Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors. McGraw also performed the song with John at the 2002 American Music Awards.
A sample of the "Tiny Dancer" chorus is featured in a mash-up by Girl Talk called "Smash Your Head" (from the 2006 album Night Ripper).
Also, Tiny Dancer has been Remixed by the Electronic Dance Artist "Deadmau5."
