Songs from the West Coast

Songs from the West Coast, Elton John’s twenty-sixth studio album, came out worldwide on 1 October 2001. For this record, John teamed up again with his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin, while Patrick Leonard—who had produced the soundtrack for The Road to El Dorado the year before—handled production and played keyboards on several tracks. It was John’s first non-soundtrack studio album after the merger of PolyGram and Universal Music Group, which brought his entire catalogue under one distributor.

Drummer Nigel Olsson returned to the Elton John Band full-time, and Tata Vega, who would later join the band, sang backup vocals here for the first time. Stevie Wonder, a previous collaborator on “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” and “That’s What Friends Are For,” played harmonica and clavinet on “Dark Diamond.” Notably, three of John’s then-band members—Guy Babylon, Bob Birch, and John Mahon—did not appear on the album. Rufus Wainwright contributed backing vocals to “American Triangle,” a song about Matthew Shepard, the gay college student murdered in 1998. The album was dedicated to Shepard and to Davey Johnstone’s late son, Oliver Johnstone.

John has said that listening to Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker inspired many of the album’s songs. In a 2001 interview, he explained that the album was recorded on analogue tape because he felt “the voice and instruments sound warmer.” A special edition released in 2002 added a bonus disc of remixes, B-sides, and non-album singles from that period.

The first single, “I Want Love,” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It reached No. 9 in the UK, No. 10 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under chart, and No. 6 on the Adult Contemporary chart, as well as No. 9 in Canada. “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore” and “Original Sin” also became hit singles, with “Original Sin” receiving a Grammy nomination in the same category the following year. None of the album’s songs entered the Billboard Hot 100, which ended John’s 31-year streak of having at least one song on that chart (30 of those years with a top-40 hit).

The music video for “I Want Love,” directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, featured actor Robert Downey Jr. lip-syncing alone in a single continuous shot through Greystone Mansion. For “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore,” Justin Timberlake portrayed a young Elton John.