Just listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road the album on YouTube. Corblimey, its from 1973! Gawd! So long ago and I absolutely adored it back then when I wuz just 12 years old. 2nd Year at Secondary School! Oh what a year!
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road captured the moment, the Zeitgeist. Elton John was one of the golden gang who ruled the airwaves back then along with Bowie, Rod Stewart and Marc Bolan. I was heavily into Bowie but Elton's album just blew me away. I have a sneaky feeling my old Mum liked Elton too.
I played Brick Road on my stereo until it wore out I bet. I knew about Elton of course, from beautiful singles like Your Song and the grand Rocket Man but the only LP I'd heard was Don't Shoot Me I'm only the Piano Player, which my older Brothers had. I loved Don't Shoot me and regularly listen in on You Tube. I remember seeing him sing Daniel and Crocodile Rock on Top of the Pops.
But its Goodbye Yellow Brick Road where Elton came alive for me, his masterpiece, at least during my youth. Amazingly it was his 7th LP. That's a lot of work getting there but boy, when he did! The double album has 17 or 18 tracks that I never forgot. Some are better than others but the whole thing as one is just fabulous. I certainly thought so back in '73!
Outstanding songs include the title track itself as well as Bennie and the Jets, Roy Rogers, The Ballad of Danny Bailey, Harmony and Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting. Special mention has to go to Candle in the Wind, which I sang every night to my baby daughter as she fell asleep. Despite its underlying tragedy and later becoming a royal hymn, its a song which has always meant a great deal to me and my daughter and on the occasion of her wedding we danced the Father-Daughter dance to it, tears filling our eyes!
Back when I was 12 it was also the album cover that grabbed me, when LP art was well, an art form. The small cartoons inside the gatefold were just sublime and all in all the whole package was just fantastic. I even had a sequined metallic bomber jacket and platforms like Elton on the front but who didn't in 1973! I can almost feel the sheer weight of those platform shoes as I dragged them around Preston trying to look cool with my Oxford Bags and Ben Sherman shirt! I even wore thick black prescription spex already then like Joe 90!
And so Sweet Painted Lady is starting in my earphones. Seems its always been the same. I'll bow out now and sing along to the Moonbase Mutt Blue.
Did you like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road readers?
Was at the right age for Elton, Bowie, Bolan and the like, but was into TV and Movie themes at the time and so wasn't that keen on them.
ReplyDeleteDidn't get into Rock and Pop until my late teens/early 20s, as a student, with late Punk and the New Romantics.
So stuff like Blondie, The Tubes, Visage, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan and of course, Ultravox.