The 20th of February 1973
Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 18th to Saturday the 24th of February 1973
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 17th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 18th,
and published on Wednesday the 21st of February 1973.
Elton John
Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player
At No.1, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 1st Birthday, is Elton John with Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player.
I’ve actually got this album.
Not from back then (though that would be impressive), but picked up from somewhere at some point. Up until now I’d probably only played it once.
This is the one that had the hits ‘Daniel’, (which was currently featuring in the U.K. Singles Chart in this same featured week) which I used to hear all the time at one point or other in the late ‘80’s onwards, and ‘Crocodile Rock’ which I used to think was a bit cheesy. It’s all gained more respect from me since then.
I think it will get played a bit more in the future…
I do like the early Elton output,..
…and himself and Bernie Taupin were churning out a hell of a lot back then.
Although he famously didn’t hit No.1 in the UK singles chart for about 20 years, his albums regularly hit the top of the tree. In fact this was Elton’s first album to hit the spot.
The title of this album could have originated from a number of ideas and directions.
One of them is a quote from Oscar Wilde “Don’t shoot the piano player, he’s doing his best” which Wilde reportedly spotted in a saloon bar while on a visit to the U.S.
Another is a nod to a Francois Truffaut film “Shoot The Piano Player”.
The biggest answer references that the line was actually spoken by Elton himself, at a party Groucho Marx threw, and which Elton played piano at.
The story goes that Groucho constantly teased Elton during the evening, eventually holding two of his fingers out with his thumb in the air, as if imitating a gun and pointing it at Elton as if to shoot him, a motion which Elton responded by turning to face him with his hands up in a gesture of surrender and shouting “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player”! (probably himself nodding to the first two theories above).
There’s also a nod to Groucho on the front cover in the form of the movie poster. He’s not the only one to get a nod either.
A few tracks give a tip of the hat to other artists such as Van Morrison, Bobby Vee, The Rolling Stones, and Elton’s close friend Marc Bolan.
For me, from this distance in time, the LP still sounds fresh, an album by an up and coming artist who, even though he’d now successfully scaled the mountain of the U.K. Albums Chart, was still to reach his artistic peak, and you can tell at this point he was still enjoying himself.
The album had been the highest new entry a couple of weeks before,..
…when it had shot in like a bullet, straight to the top of the charts, on the 4th of Feb.
This week would be its third at No.1, and Elton could look forward to three more at that position for the next few weeks, after which, the album will relent and begin to fall away, very gradually at first, then gain momentum, before falling out of the chart altogether after the 7th of July.
It would resurface, to see out the end of that summer month for a two week stay, before coming back for another couple of weeks in mid-August, after which there will only be a couple of week-long autumn appearances, in September and November, to round off this current year.
He’ll be back briefly the following year of 1974, to see this album appear again for another three weeks, as the very end of February turns to March, before a more substantial run, which would occupy 9 consecutive weeks, from the last day of that early Spring month to the first Summer day of June 1974, with another week tacking onto the middle of that month.
Elton’s final week on the U.K. Chart, with this album to date, will be one final week in July that year, before the album falls away for good, with a total of 42 weeks on chart.
I’ve created my own separate playlists for Sides 1 and 2 of this album with (I hope) the correct versions and the original track sequencing order for the U.K. release.
Side 1
Side 2
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