Sunday Sounds, July 5, “Are You Ready For Love?”

Posted On July 5, 2020

Samantha Colleran, July 2020

Happy first Sunday of July! To kick off this month, we’re starting with an Elton John song titled “Are You Ready For Love?”. I know I’ve talked about Elton a great deal on here recently, but I can’t help it, he’s amazing! This is one of the very rare songs sung by Elton John not written by him and Bernie Taupin. It’s still amazing. Elton teamed up with Thom Bell, a big time Philadelphia producer who worked on hits for people like The Spinners and The Stylistics. Elton and Bell got together to work on a full length album, but they only ended up with a few songs, “Are You Ready For Love?” among those that made the cut. Despite the fact they were recorded in 1977, the songs weren’t released until 1979 on an EP titled “The Thom Bell Sessions ‘77”.

The entire song is over eight minutes long and has really beautiful lyrics that reflect the Philadelphia soul sound, “I’ll write a symphony just for me/ If you let me love you” and “We’ll serenade the world with a lullaby/ So the angels will know us, angels will know us”. The song features Elton on lead vocals with Thom Bell singing the second verse. The Spinners recorded lead vocals that ended up not being used. The Spinners went on to record their own version that was released around the same time as Elton’s was hitting the UK charts. 

The song regained popularity in 2003 when a DJ named Ashley Beedle remixed the track. It was played in nightclubs and was even used in soccer coverage and promotions by Sky Sports. The remix became an instant UK hit and was on the US Hot Dance/Music Club Play chart. The remix is a little over seven minutes. The original Elton version was edited for radio and was cut down to about three and a half minutes and is featured on Elton’s Diamonds album full of his greatest hits. The song is a completely different sound than the Elton everyone knows and loves, but it shows how versatile he can be in his music. I’ve attached both the original version and the edited radio version, so feel free to listen to one or the other (or both!) and let me know your thoughts on this Elton gem in the comments!