1985 Songs: Tell Me What the Papers Say

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Ah-ha! It’s time for one of my many curve balls. The singer? You know, unquestionably. The song? Nope (there, NJ, saved you the typing ). Why? Because it wasn’t a hit…but I like this better than the hit. So sue me. Our next song from 40 years ago. Tell Me What the Papers Say - Elton John Yeah, yeah, “Nikita” and all that. You know me well enough to know the “big hits” don’t always thrill me. Case in point: lots of people love Elton John’s first big hit, “Your Song.” My take is that it wasn’t the best song on the 45 (the B-side was “Take Me to the Pilot”). Ice on Fire was a pretty lame follow-up to EJ’s masterful 1984 album Breaking Hearts, but Elton really has to go out of his way to make a solidly BAD album. Even an album like Caribou, which sounded like “how much coke can we do and STILL make an album” (see: “Solar Prestige a Gammon”), had the masterpieces “Ticking” and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” Everyone was happy enough with “Nikita,” which has become one of Elton’s 80s classics; or with the first duet with George Michael, “Wrap Her Up.” As for me, I’ll take this one. It’s funny that this seems to foreshadow the problem Elton would have with the British tabloids (he had to sue them in 1987, and he sued them again in 2023). While our “tabloid press” seems to have faded (I haven’t seen a Weekly World News in years), it’s alive and well in Britain. Elton tackled it head-on…and got a great song out of it. Tell Me What the Papers Say Written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin Recorded by Elton John From Ice on Fire, 1985 Nobody’s working underground today: