Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Not only is this maybe the greatest pop song ever recorded but it's the greatest pop song ever performed with a backing band of hand puppets.


You know, this is a tricky song to get into for the first time if you weren't already into it. It's on the radio all the time. It's always on in the supermarket. It's as ubiquitous as any pop song from the last forty years. It's an easy song to not get too excited about. I didn't get into it until last year (my 32nd year!) and I don't even remember what did it. I think I was just sitting around with my girlfriend one night when she put her old record on and...!!! I had one of those inexplicable pop music moments that happen every so often, the kind of truly profound, existentially deep moments that pop music may have even created...and it was like I heard "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" for the first time, as if Elton John were just some unknown 22 year old living in Brooklyn and this was a track off his first album. Except way, way better than that. In every possible way. This song is stupid good.

I'm not an audiophile and I don't think analogue is better than digital or anything like that but I do think one of the reasons why this song is so amazing is because it was recorded at a particular moment (1973) when analogue recording equipment was at its prime paired with one of the great 20th century pop stars also in his prime working with his longtime songwriter/collaborator Bernie Taupin, also in his prime. It's a rare and utterly pristine combination...you can listen to this song a hundred times in a row and not get tired of it. It's huge, it's majestic, it's interstellar.... That slow down-tempo just kills me. It's perfect! And the space in between the verses! And the drum fills! What!? I'm not even sure you could write and record a song this good today...I actually think this is like a once in a generation type pop song. I mean, look, not every generation sends astronauts to walk on the moon. So why would it be any different in pop music?