John Lewis and Partners is a well-known general department store in Great Britain. It’s the type of old-fashioned department store that, like the late and lamented B. Altman and Co. (which you can see recreated in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), carries everything from clothing to electric appliances.
Christmas TV commercials and Christmas shows are a big big thing in English television, much bigger than here in the United States. It is often the season when extinct TV shows come alive for one new episode on one night.
John Lewis’s Christmas commercial. "The Boy and The Piano," stars a big “get”: Elton John. It’s a musical tour through his life that mixes old and new footage, with de-aged Elton mixed with young Elton and old Elton.
I liked it, but there’s been a lot of odd hate for it online. You decide. Either you’ll smile or you won’t. Read the rest
No, this isn't a movie about North Korea's Kim Jung-un, but rather, "Rocketman" singer Elton John. The film, which stars Welsh actor Taron Egerton as Elton John, comes out next summer. Here is its first trailer. Read the rest
Trump went off script in Montana last week, conceding "I don't have a guitar, or an organ." Trump did note that he has a mouth "and hopefully the brain attached to the mouth." Stephen Colbert analyzes the rambling Trump rant so weird that Snopes had to confirm it.
Democratic Underground was kind enough to share a handy pic of the moment.
• Trump's Brain Instrument Is On The Fritz Again (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) Read the rest
Here's some behind-the-scenes footage of Elton John in 1970 working out the harmony for what he describes as "the song about Bernie's girlfriend."
"Bernie" is Bernie Taupin, the song's lyricist and the song is Tiny Dancer. Taupin's girlfriend at that time was the band's seamstress Maxine Feibelmann, a dancer who later became Bernie's first wife. In a 1973 Rolling Stone interview, Taupin acknowledged that the song is about her. When asked directly, he stated, "That's true, yes." The song is even dedicated to her on the album, Madman Across the Water.
However, Taupin later stated that the song was about all the women he encountered in California in those days:
“We came to California in the fall of 1970, and sunshine radiated from the populace,” he said. “I was trying to capture the spirit of that time, encapsulated by the women we met–especially at the clothes stores up and down the Strip in L.A. They were free spirits, sexy in hip-huggers and lacy blouses, and very ethereal, the way they moved. So different from what I’d been used to in England. And they all wanted to sew patches on your jeans. They’d mother you and sleep with you–it was the perfect Oedipal complex.” Why “tiny,” then? “Well, that’s poetic license, although they were all petite and lithe. And ‘Tiny Dancer’ sounds better than ‘Small Dancer,’ or ‘Little Dancer.'”
In any event, it's a damn good song. Here is John in 1971 performing it:
(TwistedSifter) Read the rest
"Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall for the inauguration," said Anthony Scaramucci, a member of president-elect Donald Trump's transition team.
"There is no truth in this at all," Elton John's spokeswoman told BBC News. Read the rest
