I can't thank you guys enough for putting Goodbye Yellow Brick Road over the top. It's been a long time since I totally immersed myself in an album and fell this hard. Did you know I'd go so crazy for it? Probably, as it's among his most popular work and everyone who put a vote in for it is familiar. It feels like a move from the Captain Obvious playbook to treat something so historically beloved as my own revelation and discovery (OMG CHOCOLATE - HAVE YOU EVER TRIED CHOCOLATE?), but I suppose that's part of the point of this exercise. Listening to GYBR over and over again transported me above my tiresome commutes through the plate of spaghetti that is the route from Brookline to Cambridge and spurred me on in my runs. I started hearing the songs in my sleep. I'll say it again and again: good art immeasurably improves the quality of one's life. I highly recommend picking something and giving yourself the opportunity to be bowled over, especially in contrast to, uh, everything right now.
I will clarify that Elton John is a bucket list concert for me (guess I better get on that), the title track to this album has been a top-five song for me for a long time, and I have always been a fan of his music, but in a radio-singles way, not an album-deep way. Not anymore. The thing about music is that it's here forever, and it comforts me deeply that even when EJ is gone (he might live forever tho) we can always go back and find something new, when it's been right there before our eyes and ears. Music is hope. Double albums stuffed with deliriously well crafted songs about hustlers and sex workers, depressed bourgeoisie and dwellers on the margins of society, sad movie stars and glam rockers high on fashion, bitter breakups and dirty little girls, that's all waiting! That's a new skin to wear, a new pair of glasses for viewing the world. I am grateful for Elton John's gift, for Bernie Taupin's words, for that incredible backing band.
Though the bonkers, chill-inducing and soaring proggy oddity "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding in My Hands" that opens the album (an all time great first track, if you ask me) sounds like the overture to an insane rock opera, there's no through-line or concept for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It's just one amazing composition of 17 distinctly different but distinctly amazing compositions that range in sound from honky tonk to grimy rock n' roll to gentle balladry. Elton John is a master of the piano and its ilk, that's indisputable, but what this album really captures for me is his storytelling. I know he doesn't write his own lyrics, but he sure as hell sells them. Everything out of his mouth, you're right there with him, believing him, sympathizing with him as he escapes with Roy Rogers or gets high on tequila and breezes through life or describes the saga of a 16 year old female gigolo. That's his genius. (While we're on the genius track, Wikipedia fun: did you know that Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics for the entire album in two and a half weeks and EJ composed most of the music in like three days? I once ate an entire cheescake in three days).
The opening track is my favorite. I listened to that 11 minute jam more than any of the others, it's more brilliant every time. "Goodbye..." is still right up there, nobody delivers a cynical kiss-off like our boy, and though I goggle at his versatility, that Sir Elton is my favorite Sir Elton (see also: "I've Seen that Movie Too"). "Grey Seal" is just so good, and though at first the lyrics put me off, I'm really into the raw and slinky "Dirty Little Girl." "Social Disease" is pure fun, as is "Jamaica Jerk-Off" (heh) and "All the Girls Love Alice." I've taken "Bennie and the Jets" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" for granted all my life, and hearing them in the album's flow reminded me why they are so good. I've frankly never been a fan of "Candle in the Wind" but I have a new appreciation for it. "Harmony" is a sweet little coda. Even my least favorite songs are still good! I don't particularly love "Roy Rogers" or "The Ballad of Danny Bailey" but there's nothing on there I hate.
As ever my reviewing skills are not skillful, nor did I actually review Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but I think I should get points for my capacity to love something this hard. I'm grateful for my brother giving me the idea, for those who helped steer me in this direction, and for finding and experiencing inspiration this lush and wondrous. I will be trotting out the rest of Elton John's catalog, best believe.
In closing, I know I'm old fashioned as hell and the world doesn't work this way anymore, but for the love of god, let's bring back listening to albums in their entirety, yeah? Gonna go channel my inner Elton for the rest of the day.