Bitter Fingers by Elton John

I decided to write about an album track from Elton John. An album track means a song from an album which wasn’t a hit and/or a single. The song I’m writing about is “Bitter Fingers” from Elton John’s 1975 album “Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy”. This was during the peak of Elton John’s success. This song was written with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. It features his original band of Davey Johnstone (guitar), Nigel Olsson (drums), Dee Murray (bass) & Ray Cooper (percussion) and is produced by Gus Dudgeon. I’m embedding the YouTube audio of the song and am discussing it below.

The song opens with Elton’s piano. There is a subtle melodic part with his piano. I suspect this instrument is bells or belltree. They are two of the instruments percussionist Ray Cooper is credited with playing alongside tambourine and congas. Elton then begins singing. Soon subtle bass by Dee Murray appears. This is followed by understated rock guitar by Davey Johnstone and barely audible drums from Nigel Olsson. When the chorus starts, Nigel’s drumming properly comes in and it becomes a full-on rock song. Nigel’s drumming and Elton’s piano rock well together in the chorus. Davey’s guitar comes in and out during this section. Davey, Nigel and Dee sing backing vocals in the chorus and at the end of the song.

After the first chorus, it goes back to the piano intro of the start. Davey’s guitar then comes in, doubling the piano which sounds good. Towards the end of the second verse, Nigel brings his drums properly in a bit before the chorus. Dee’s bass seems to be louder from the second chorus to the end of the song. After the last chorus, Davey gives a good guitar solo to conclude the song which is followed by it going into the chorus with the song soon fading. Elton is credited with playing pianos on the track so it seems he’s playing two pianos. I’m interested to know how the two pianos are featured.

Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy is an autobiographical album chronicling the early days of Elton John & Bernie Taupin’s careers before Elton became a superstar. Bitter Fingers is about Elton & Bernie’s struggles as staff songwriters at Dick James Music (DJM) where they had to write songs they weren’t interested in which were popular at the time. Steve Brown who worked in promotions at DJM told Elton & Bernie their work was awful and to instead write music they believed in. This resulted in them writing the rocking single “Lady Samantha” in early 1969. More songs recorded by Elton came out that year which were the single “It’s Me That You Need” and his debut album “Empty Sky”. Steve produced those singles and the debut album. While he didn’t produce any more songs for Elton, he set Elton & Bernie on the path to be the globally successful songwriting team they became.

Bitter Fingers is a great album track by Elton John. It’s representative of his style of music being similar to some of his well-known songs. I really like Bernie’s line about “the keyboard player’s hollow haunted eyes”. While this song was recorded in America, it has a definite English feel both lyrically and melodically. This makes sense as it deals with Elton & Bernie’s experiences in England. Gus Dudgeon did a very good job producing this melodic 1970s rocker. This song represents the songwriting of Elton John & Bernie Taupin at their best.