Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Forty years ago today Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released. I was 12, just the right age to be in the midst of John's popularity, which was the biggest pop music craze since Beatlemania. I got the album that year for Christmas, along with a portable record player, and both saw a lot of wear and tear.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was the apex of John's career, a magnum opus that encompassed two albums and 17 songs. It was, incredibly, his second album of the calendar year, with Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player, coming out in January. It spawned a number of hit singles, but is best played as a collection.

I hadn't heard this album in probably thirty years, but when I played the CD this past week I remembered every note. I also remembered holding and looking at the album cover, a triptych, with each song getting an illustration.  A couple of them were sexy, at least to a tween, and some of the songs had references to sex that were kind of titillating. I think "All the Young Girls Love Alice" was the first song I had ever heard specifically about a lesbian.

What's great about this album is that John, as well as his lyricist Bernie Taupin (who deserves equal credit for the greatness of the record) were, like The Beatles, not interested in establishing any one particular style. They explore a number of genres, from reggae to heavy metal. The album opens with the spooky instrumental, "Funeral for a Friend," which even today I find chilling, and breaks into the hard rock "Love Lies Bleeding." That first side (speaking in vinyl terms) ended with the elegy for Marilyn Monroe, "Candle in the Wind," which could have been written in any era (and later became a hit all over again after the death of Princess Diana and a tweaking of the lyric).

"Candle in the Wind" is just one of the songs about Hollywood. I count four, with minor mentions in other songs. The title track, which was also a big hit single, is about a man disillusioned by stardom:

"So goodbye, yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl,
You can't keep me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough,
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny-backed toad,
Oh I've finally decided my future lies,
Beyond the yellow brick road."

There's also the terrific "I've Seen That Movie, Too," which has lovely orchestrations and a wonderful vocal by John. When I was a kid I didn't care for this song, but as an adult I see it's sophistication. Then there's the poignant "Roy Rogers," about a simple man with a hum-drum life who takes pleasure in watching old movies:

"Roy Rogers is riding tonight,
Returning to our silver screens,
Comic book characters never grow old,
Evergreen heroes whose stories were told,
The great sequin cowboy
Who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers
And home on the range.
Turn on the TV, shut out the light
Roy Rogers is riding tonight."

The album also has some great characters, with John assuming the first-person role of many of them. Some of them, given John's Hobbit-like physical appearance, seem ludicrous today, but worked back then. "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting," about Taupin's growing up in Lincolnshire, has John playing the part of a young tough:

"A couple of the sounds that I really like
Are the sound of a switchblade and motorbike
I'm a juvenile product of the working class,
Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass."

Or "Social Disease," which casts Elton as a louche scoundrel:

"I dress in rags, smell a lot,
And have a real good time,
I'm a certified example
Of a social disease."

There are about a dozen masterpieces on this record, an incredible batting average. I only dislike one of the songs, "Dirty Little Girl," which isn't very good melodically and misogynist in its lyric:

"Someone grab that bitch by the ears
Rub her down scrub her back
And turn her inside out.
'Cause I bet she hasn't had a bath in years."

A few other notable songs on the album are "Bennie and the Jets," which was the one number hit of  '73 in the U.S. and a send up of rock fandom and culture, and the enigmatic love song "Harmony," which may be my favorite song of the collection:

"Harmony and me,
We're pretty good company,
Floating on an island
In a boat upon the sea.
Harmony, gee I really love you
And I want to love you forever
I dream of never ever leaving Harmony."

John would have a few more hit albums following, but his mega-hyped release in 1975, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, didn't meet expectations, and his career slowly starting ebbing into something else. Of course, he's still a big draw and a major star, but his days at the top of the pop heap were over.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, as far as I'm concerned, was his greatest achievement, and the best pop album of the decade.