I've Seen The Saucers - Elton John (1974)

"I've Seen The Saucers" was released on Elton John's eight studio album, Caribou, in the summer of 1974. This is one of my favorite songs on an album with almost all great or good songs, but an album that I have long considered one of the worst "albums" recorded by any of my favorite major artists at the height of their powers (see below for my rambling Caribou thoughts). I've wanted to do something for a few tracks off this album for a long time, and I've started things for several...this wasn't one of those, I had dug up my old files for Graham Parker's "Waiting For The UFO's" for an update, and the theme got me thinking about this song, so I grabbed some footage from Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and edited it really quickly just to have something to upload. ;-) It doesn't quite work, but if nothing else listen to the audio; FLAC audio sourced from 2019's Japan Remastered SHM-CD.

I was 12 when Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released and I remember buying it as my first Elton album. I remember coming home from school and laying on my mom's vinyl couch and listening to it as the sunshine streamed in the window onto the jacket as I poured over the lyrics....those summers seemed endless. The next thing I remember about growing up listening to EJ is everything is the same, except I'm a bit older and the album is not GYBR, but Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Then moving forward into high school with Rock of the Westies, Blue Moves and A Single Man (recollections of all also being played on my mom's huge RCA entertainment center and that same vinyl couch...but there were also memories associated with those not related to that living room). Then on to college with 21 at 33 and The Fox especially (I really love both of those albums), and then on to the string of eighties albums.

I've mentioned the years I worked at a record store in Texas in the early to mid '80's and it's during this time that I finally started buying Elton's back catalog. The thing that has always been so strange to me is that I somehow completely missed Caribou, and didn't buy the album until the mid-eighties as I was collecting his old stuff. Now I do know my best friend at the time had it and I know I'd heard it many times at his house, but somehow my fanaticism (not quite the level of my best friend, but close!) for Elton John, which was at it's peak the year Caribou was released, didn't include the album released right between GYBR and CFATBDC?!

Caribou has always been odd album out with me. Maybe it's because it just didn't make the impression on me that the album before it and the album after it did? The thing that has always stood out about Caribou to me is that it just doesn't seem like an album at all, rather a random selections of songs; one undeniable hit, one epic centerpiece and some random songs just thrown together? Although I really like most of the songs (I can live without "Dixie Lily" and (though the song is good) I think I'd like "Stinker" much better if it had a different lyric and title, but all of the songs besides "The Bitch Is Back" and "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" are just varying degrees of odd, and listening to the album never leaves any sense of cohesiveness. I think different sequencing might have helped some (I'll add my preferences in comment section).

Taking a road trip to the Texas Hill Country a few weeks back, I had the opportunity to listen to the new 2019 Japan Remastered SHM-CD..and the thing that struck me most (after how amazing the album sounded, such punch and clarity on these 2019 Japan SHM-CD's!) is that I think I finally realized why I somehow missed out on Caribou....it's the single greatest example I know of where mostly very good songs were put together on an album in a way that weakened the overall effect and where the whole is somehow less than the individual parts? For over 40, when I'd think about Caribou I always misremember it as the album that came right before Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I still think of it that way, because there's no way this could have been the album released between Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic!!! LOL! Sorry for that ramble, but this is what Caribou does to me every time. ;-)

Maybe I should have just referred to the producer's thoughts?
From Wiki: In the liner notes to the 1995 CD re-release, John described the album as being quickly recorded in January 1974, with only about 9 days to get everything recorded, as he and the band "were under enormous pressure" to finish the album and then immediately embark on a Japanese tour. Producer Gus Dudgeon would later add additional backing vocals, horns and other overdubs after John and the band had finished their work. Dudgeon later called the album "a piece of crap ... the sound is the worst, the songs are nowhere, the sleeve came out wrong, the lyrics weren't that good, the singing wasn't all there, the playing wasn't great and the production is just plain lousy".