The Elton John Style Parody Mystery

[mrmeadows]

Okay, this mystery is starting to gnaw at me again. So to recap:

1. The Elton song is NOT one of his singles--but is a fan favorite--and was recorded pre-2011.
2. One of either the target EJ song OR correct Al song was mentioned in the original thread about this. (Here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11022)
3. "Midnight Star" is not the Al song in question.
4. The Al song has not been previously identified as a style-parody of another artist.

So over in the Music forum under Unreleased Tracks, someone who played with Al on some songs posted that he recalls a recording session where they played EJ's "Your Sister Don't Dance (But She Can Rock N Roll)", which is a song off the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. I'm convinced that any EJ homage by Al would be based on a song off GYBR because we know that was an influential album for Al. As for which Al song, something about "Don't Wear Those Shoes" always struck me as Elton John-esque...but not quite. That was also one of the few songs mentioned in the original thread. So here's my new guess based on all of this:

"Don't Wear Those Shoes" = "Your Sister Don't Dance (But She Can Rock N Roll)"

Hopefully Bermuda is still checking in so he can tell me if I'm right or not. (Probably not.) (Right, that is.)

[Big Spoon]

I'm gonna throw a guess I came up with a week or so ago in here.

Same Elton John original, but different Al song.

"Your Sister Don't Twist (But She Can Rock N Roll)" = "That Boy Could Dance"

I know, both songs about dancing, but maybe? I don't know. I was a little drunk when I first had this thought, and recently found it amongst the slew of drunk texts I sent to myself that night. So it could be close, or way off.

[mrmeadows]

I actually guessed that one already...it was wrong. :-(
viewtopic.php?p=799933#p799933

[bermuda]

Sorry, nope.

[Big Spoon]

I actually guessed that one already...it was wrong. :-(
viewtopic.php?p=799933#p799933

My bad.

[Genius in Maine]

Are we still allowed to ask questions which could help us with our guessing? Not that long ago, a potential Al/Elton song combo crossed my mind, but I'm 99.27% sure it was wrong, so I didn't bother bumping up the thread.

[mrmeadows]

Sorry, nope.

CURSES!!

Genius in Maine: you might as well give it a guess. Unless it falls outside the clues we've already been given by Bermuda, I'm sure it's as good a guess as any.

[Genius in Maine]

Thank you, Mr. Meadows.

Though it's probably wrong, the idea which crossed my mind was that "This Is The Life" was supposed to be a pastiche of "Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)." The intro to TITL sounds to me like it could be a sped-up, piano version of "Funeral", and some of the lines from TITL sound like they could be sung to the tune of "Love Lies Bleeding" without too much mangling. However, "Johnny Dangerously" being a period piece makes its theme song an unlikely place to emulate a musician who wasn't around at the time the movie was set.

[mrmeadows]

Interesting theory, GiM. We'll see what Bermuda says. He did say that the finished song ended up not sounding much like the intended target at all, so who knows?

[bermuda]

No correct answer yet, although I think one of the songs got a mention - I forget which - but it wasn't paired with the right song anyway.

While the Al song didn't really end up with the desired Elton influence, with just a little imagination, you can tell that it wanted to go there.

I will say that the recording of the particular Al song occurred 12 years and 8 months after the Elton song in question was released.

Bermuda