Tom Dunne: Perhaps 'muso' shouldn't be a term of abuse after all
Elton John will bring his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour to Cork's Páirc Uí Chaoimh next year
‘Muso.’ It was a term of abuse during the punk wars, the worst thing you could be. If advertising for bandmates a curt “No musos” would let people know where you stood. It was Glen Matlock’s ‘muso’ tendencies that did for him in The Sex Pistols.
But as you advanced that changed. It was like driving. It was nice to have people in the car who looked the part and could say ‘nought to 60’ convincingly, but at some point you needed someone who could drive. You might do one album without a muso. You wouldn’t do two.
Elton John is a muso. In Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork last week he may have appeared to be the ultimate showman and I doubt he’s known the price of milk since 1972, but trust me: he’s a muso, all day long. He could have done the same show, alone, in Cyprus Avenue.
If trapped in a lift with a muso the key to fluid conversation is to talk music. Don’t ask about Princess Diana or his Aids charity. Say, “I see you play a Yamaha Disklavier,” or “How great was that album by - Cavan band - The Strypes?”. You’ll do well to get a word in.
He did the hard graft. It’s the old joke: “How do you get to Carnegie hall? “ Practice, practice, practice!” Elton did all that, the piano lessons at five, the private tuition on Saturdays. By 15 he had enough skills to be employed to play piano four nights a week in a local pub.
And it didn’t stop there. By 18, when American acts like The Isley Brothers or The Ink Spots came to the UK he would perform with them, seamlessly slipping in as part of their touring band. He performed piano and vocals on Top of the Pops albums, where chart hits were faithfully, if cheaply, reproduced.
Famously his life would change at 19 when a music publisher passed him an unopened envelope with lyrics from one Bernie Taupin. It was the beginning of a partnership that would become one of the most successful of the 20th century, rivalling that of Lennon/McCartney, David/ Bacharach and Jagger/Richards.
But it was based on hard graft. They, like Tin Pan Alley songwriters or those in the Brill Building, were expected to produce about three potential hits a week. To do this a certain blueprint was developed: Taupin would write the lyrics in one hour, John the music in half that.
They became inured to the pressures of the business, used to working to a deadline and grabbing any spare moment to write new material. Most was formulaic but not unsuccessful; a song they penned for Lulu finished sixth at Eurovision. It was a skill that would serve them well.
They started writing songs specifically for Elton himself in 1968. Empty Sky debuted in 1969 and by the time Honky Chateau topped the US charts in May 1972 they had written and recorded five albums together. The pace didn’t change, but the results would: Their next six albums would all top the US chart. Seven number one albums, in four years.
They maintained this output despite the arrival of the stadium rock era. Elton couldn’t get enough of that, and what is now seen as the era of rock’s worst excesses, where Elton again exceeded all expectation.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 1973 was a highpoint. A double album, it had both hits - like Candle in the Wind and Benny and The Jets - and artistically ambitious epics like Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding. It had era-defining art work, no weak tracks and would top the US charts for two months.
In his autobiography, he tells the tale of one album that he and Taupin resolved to write during a sea cruise. It turned out he could only get access to the ship’s piano when another passenger, an opera singer, was finished with it. The same was not true of the bar. Yet, two weeks later, another number one album was complete. Those who can, do, as they say.
The muso term popped into my head at Glastonbury. Paul McCartney had, nonchalantly, pulled off the kind of bass riff that made the audience gasp. Beside me, my friend muttered the world ‘muso’. I suspect he wasn’t the only ex-punk in the crowd muttering that world.
But it isn’t a term of abuse anymore. It’s respectful, reverential. Bowie, Macca, Keith, Elton – all utter and complete, gifted bloody musos!
