‘Made In England’ – 25 Fun Facts for 25 Years

The Album Overall

★  Made In England was recorded over about 14 weeks in early 1994 at AIR Lyndhurst in London. Opened two years prior by Sir George Martin, the studio is located in a former church and is where the score for the 2019 film Rocketman was recorded.

★  The album was originally going to be called Believe. The decision to change it was made by Elton, who, after consulting with lyricist Bernie Taupin, thought it was more apropos to honour the now-title song and the fact that the album was written and recorded in his home country.

★  At the time of writing the lyrics, and into the recording sessions, all songs had one-word titles: Made In England was called “England”, Building A Bird was “Bird”, etc. Bernie and Elton both strongly wanted to evoke the raw feel of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, which had many single-word titles.

★  Elton told Greg Penny, “I want that [Lennon] vocal sound. You know, like Mother. I want this to be an album where all the songs have an interesting vocal sound and they convey something about my voice that’s a bit different.”

★  Elton’s long-time habit of doing his piano and vocal parts and then leaving everyone else to it was set aside for this album. Paul Buckmaster: “He had a lot more hands on this than any other recording I’d worked with him on. He was there for all the overdubs, all the bass parts, and guitar parts and so on.” For this reason, Elton was given co-producer credit on the album.

The Songs

★  The first song written for the album was Bird, which did not make it onto the final release but was later covered (as Building A Bird) by Elton’s drummer Nigel Olsson on his album Move The Universe (2001). The next song written was Belfast, and then Believe, recorded with a tabla intro that was cut before release but included in the live tour version. Greg Penny: “I remember we were saying, “Hey Bernie. Can you write anything without a B in the title?” [Laughing]

★  Attempts were made to bolster the chorus to Made In England. Greg Penny: “We went to a sound effects library and got the best samples of the World Cup chants. Then we built one ourselves; we got everybody out into the room and just layered it. The World Cup one ended up sounding like white noise and the one we did sounded out of context.”

★  Latitude was based on the Beatles’ You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away and For No One. Greg Penny: “That’s why we had [Beatles producer/arranger] George Martin write the horn and string arrangement. Asking him if he would consider doing that was daunting. Elton and I decided to leave our session in The Hall at AIR and go find George in the studio café at lunch to pop the question. He could not have been nicer. He said something like, ‘I’ll finish my sandwich and I’ll come in and listen to it.’ That will never happen again in this or any other lifetime.” Keeping with the Beatles theme, the opening chord on Made In England is an homage to A Hard Day’s Night and the chorus of Please is intentionally reminiscent of Please Please Me.

★  A total of 20 songs were written during the session, plus an original alternate version of Belfast. One of the out-takes, Red, was released on the French AIDS charity album Sol En Si.

★  The song Horses was written and demoed for this album, complete with a mock-up arrangement by Paul Buckmaster, but not included. However, it was re-recorded, re-titled Live Like Horses, and released on Elton’s next effort, The Big Picture. Greg Penny: “I thought the song, and the lyric, was as potent as [Simon and Garfunkel’s] Bridge Over Troubled Water, but we were working on other songs and it got away from me, which I will regret forever.”

The Release

★  Made In England reached #3 on the UK Album Chart (Elton’s 20th top 10 on that list) and #13 on the Billboard 200 chart, which ties it for Elton’s 2nd-highest appearance in America since 1976. The album also placed in the top 5 in 12 territories and in the top 10 in six more, making it one of the most globally successful albums of Elton’s post-classic-years career. Further, the album was awarded Gold, Platinum, or multi-Platinum certifications in a dozen countries.

★  The album’s release was delayed for quite a while due to the massive popularity of Elton’s previous effort, The Lion King, eventually dropping a full year after being recorded. Greg Penny: “The decision was made, close to the fall of 1994, to push it back.” Because of things that happened in the interim, this meant that Made In England was the first Elton album to be released under his new worldwide label deal with PolyGram.

★  Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin did a rare in-store autograph session at Tower Records in Los Angeles from midnight to 3 AM on March 21st. A portion of this can be seen in the 1996 documentary Tantrums & Tiaras.

★  Rolling Stone‘s Peter Galvin said in his February 2, 1998 review, “Made In England holds together as an accomplished, cohesive suite of songs whose underlying theme — the acceptance that comes with aging — is often beautifully articulated. … [it] is a startlingly fine album, one that shows a newly committed artist tapping into the essence of his creative flow.”

★  Elton was nominated for a Best Pop Vocal Performance – Male GRAMMY for Believe. This was his 22nd nomination up to that time.

Track List (with 1994 recording dates)

1. Believe [February 24]
2. Made in England [March 18]
3. House [March 1]
4. Cold [February 23]
5. Pain [March 2]
6. Belfast [March 4]
7. Latitude [March 30]
8. Please [March 9]
9. Man [March 28]
10. Lies [March 29]
11. Blessed [March 14]