Sun Spin: Elton John

WHEN ARE YOU GONNA COME DOWN? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LAND?

1973 was a very good year for Elton John. That January he’d released Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player, his second U.S. No. 1 album and his first No. 1 in the U.K. It was his sixth full-length in five years, accompanied by a possessed touring schedule and a rising public profile that was making Elton the coolest nerd to hit it big in rock since Buddy Holly. Other guys might have taken their foot off the gas for a minute but instead John heads back into the studio with his utterly amazing band – Dee Murray (bass, backing vocals), Davey Johnstone (electric guitar, backing vocals), Nigel Olsson (drums, backing vocals), David Hentschel (keys) – and lyricist-creative foil Bernie Taupin to create a double album masterpiece that remains the truest and widest ranging coalescence of the profound gifts of the Taupin/John pairing.

Laid to tape in May, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was in the public’s hands by October – a whirlwind pace in every aspect considering the elaborate packaging, sweeping arrangements and just the simple math of getting 17 songs down and out in short order. It’s hard to imagine in these Chinese Democracy times. In the fiber of Yellow Brick Road, there’s a toughness and ferocity of purpose that truly makes this set timeless, removed from the coked out, near disco days of its birth. Like many major label musicians of the era, Elton used the industry’s confusion to push through elaborate, artistically prickly work like Yellow Brick Road, though few opened their albums with 11-minute neo-classical death marches nor dabbled in the sexual ambiguity of housewives, the tender side of red light girls, colonial masturbation, Marilyn Monroe (these last two oddly not related…), self-reflexive evaluation of stardom, The Wizard of Oz and the underlying spiritual potential of rock ‘n’ roll – all topics touched on over the course of these four sides. That there’s still room for some gutsy, switchblade jive and quality balladry only speaks to richness of the well John and the oft-under-credited Taupin were drawing from.

Elton on Top of the Pops ’73

The original vinyl edition, the one everyone in 1973 rushed to record stores to pick up in droves, was an experience even without the music, matching the scale of their imaginations and passionate playing. A painting by Ian Beck depicting John in a pink silk running jacket, white slacks and stacked ruby heels to rival KISS adorns the cover. He’s stepping through a crack in a dingy wall into the land of brainless scarecrows, heartless tin men and shivering lions. A tiny piano and a loose musical note lay at his feet. In every way, this is a doorway into adventure, and it sets the tone for what’s inside, both musically and visually. The lyrics are nestled inside a booklet lavishly illustrated by David Larkham & Michael Ross, which offers a sullied take on ’40s film iconography paired with photos of the band resplendent on the green grass surrounding Château d’Hérouville, the studio in France where the album was birthed (take a peek at this joint’s pedigree). Not unlike equally lofty, art-minded kindred spirits Steely Dan, who released their dark sophomore set Countdown To Ecstasy the same year, Elton John & Bernie Taupin understood and communicated post-60s excitement and possibility but also the growing ennui of the 1970s – a cynical, “I” focused, psychology riddled malaise that still clings to us like old honey today.

original single

This last point, the vibe and emotional/intellectual content of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, is key. This is why a song cycle generated 36 years ago still feels so resonantly relevant. If anything, we’re more of a star-fucker, celebrity obsessed culture in the West than ever. And even if John ickily retooled a song about Marilyn into a Princess Di tribute, there’s no denying the original version’s emotional heft or insight, and the same goes for the entirety of Yellow Brick Road. While Sir Elton may have four Broadway musicals, a future Vegas entombment looming, the world’s largest collection of penis shaped jewelry and 22 subsequent studio records – each lesser in some way than Yellow Brick Road, sometimes startlingly so – it’s impossible to dismiss his achievement on this seventh album (and honestly, the six preceding it are plenty dynamite, too).

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is perfection, a template for rock’s capacity to be more than ephemeral, teen-fixated fluff. It is every bit the bright shining child of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust – each enduring examples of pomp with circumstance communicated by young men on the verge of real manhood, offering us zooted wisdom drawn from personal pain and party favors chopped together on a mirror reflecting back things we may not necessarily want to see about ourselves.

Track Listing

Side One
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Candle in the Wind
Bennie and the Jets

Side Two
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
This Song Has No Title
Grey Seal
Jamaica Jerk-Off
I’ve Seen That Movie Too

Side Threebr> Sweet Painted Lady
The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)
Dirty Little Girl
All the Girls Love Alice

Side Four
Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock ‘n Roll)
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
Roy Rogers
Social Disease
Harmony

All songs written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin

Pardon the sometimes-sketchy audio/video quality of some of this week’s clips, but we felt the archival stuff more accurately captured the mood of the album and the time of its creation. You’d do far worse than to pattern your next festival or Halloween costume after some of the getups included in this assortment.

Looking like a leprachaun that dropped acid, here’s Elton with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

He truly finds his pot o’ gold in this vintage Soul Train segment. However, that’s some piano Ray Charles could get down with and his phrasing is positively jazz-tastic.

Here’s one of the album’s rockers in 1974. Fabulous unitard, darling!

Elton offers up his take on what the wife is doing while dad is at the office in1973.

Taupin and John penned one of the greatest odes to the oldest profession with this one, offered up live in 1976. Coincidentally, the aforementioned Steely Dan also saluted working gals in ’73 with “Pearl of the Quarter.” One wonders if these guys bought penicillin in bulk back then.

This one’s got a nice snarky intro.

Finally, here’s a very cool bit of footage from the original Goodbye Yellow Brick Road sessions, where the band listens back to “The Ballad of Danny Bailey.”