He Lost What He Thought He Wanted And Found What He Had Always Had: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John

There are many things I could say about this record in relation to the memories it sparks in me of the early winter of 1973, but in America it closed the year and I have to address the question: what did this song and its singer and co-writer mean to Americans?

There is a definite overlap between the sentiments expressed in “Ramblin’ Man” and here, not to mention related phenomena such as “Midnight Train To Georgia” which overall signify a turning away from the slick, professional, gaudy level of showbusiness which the Nixon administration appeared to feel was desirable and back towards something resembling roots. “Goodbye” is probably a reflection of Bernie Taupin’s background of growing up in rural Lincolnshire, although Elton channels Gilbert O’Sullivan in his opening line, along with the possibility that this is a sequel to “Rocket Man” (“When are you going to land?”).

Nonetheless, the performance spells out why Elton became such big news in the States – apart from his own colourful stage act, perfectly timed to bring cheer to a country still grieving over Watergate and Vietnam, there is also the realisation that he is a damn fine songwriter, capable of fine and resonant melodies which made him, more so than the Moody Blues, the real successor to the Beatles. He sang things which people who were hurting wanted and possibly even needed to hear. Goodbye 1973, and on now to 1974, and an unexpected future.

Date Record Made Number Two: 8 December 1973

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 3

Records At Number One: “Top Of The World” by The Carpenters and “The Most Beautiful Girl” by Charlie Rich

UK Chart Position: 6

Comments

“I Would Have Thought In The Middle Of The Atlantic In The Middle Of The Night That Rockets Must Mean Trouble”: “I’m Not In Love” by 10cc

"watching for night, with absinthe eye cocked on the lone, late, passer-by." (Sylvia Plath, "Prospect," 1956) This story begins in 1954, before most people had really recognised anything called rock, and a pop record which is half-perfect. That record, which stayed at number one in our charts for ten weeks, was “Cara Mia” by David Whitfield with Mantovani and his Orchestra and Chorus. Now, Whitfield was never the most subtle of singers and his in-your-face bellowing is somewhat distracting – it is significant that he was the first British reality media star (not from television, because at that time Opportunity Knocks was only broadcast on Radio Luxembourg) since his climactic high C at the end of “Cara Mia” is like a display of gymnastics, or an athletic field event; can he do that triple loop or throw that javelin beyond the stadium? It proves that technical prowess can often render itself unlistenable. But the magic here lies in the extraordinary ...

A Disaffection, Or Fight Against Same: “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty

Even as a young teenager growing up in Lanarkshire, I was always listening out for music that sounded out of kilter, whether it was George Crumb’s Makrokosmos III (the closing section of which I heard on a Saturday afternoon on Radio 3) or anything which “irrupted” the top forty. From the first time that I heard “Baker Street” on the radio – I think it was Dougie Donnelly on Radio Clyde – I was immediately hooked, mentally noting that this song seemed to go as much against the grain of a standard pop record as anything coming out of punk or New Wave, and was probably just as angry, if not angrier. For forty years I harboured the notion – and this was from a time when visiting London, never mind living and working in it, was still a distant pipedream – that the song encapsulated the situation of the displaced Scotsman, marooned in a world he doesn’t really like or perhaps even understand. Make no mistake, this is undeniably a Scottish record, and seemingly all about someone...

Threads Of Alligator Lizards In The Air: “Purple Rain” by Prince and The Revolution

The original idea was for a country-style collaboration with Stevie Nicks, to whom Prince sent a ten-minute instrumental backing track, asking her to come up with some lyrics. However, Nicks was overwhelmed by what she heard and feared that the task was too much for her to take on, so the song was reworked in rehearsal with The Revolution, utilising Wendy Melvoin’s guitar phrasing as a new guideline. The song appears to have existed before the film; Purple Rain the movie is best described as lucid hokum, but its soundtrack changed the atoms which constituted “pop,” far more so than much ostensibly radical music of the period. For many of that decade’s generation, Purple Rain the soundtrack was “our” Ziggy Stardust – better conceived, performed and produced in every way – and the title song, which closes the album, was “our” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide.” It is such a patient epic, the song, and about a lot of things, and people – each of the verses addresses a different su...

Raise All Kinds Of Candy To The Stars

Search This Blog