Barbara Lynn playing music in the kitchen

...

Jimmy Scott

A friend of mine showed this to me. Enjoy.

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?

Yes

Best 20th Century Jewish Singer/Songwriters...

If you put a gun to my head and made me put together the Mt. Rushmore of 20th Century Jewish singer/songwriters my list would have to go something like this:

(The first three are no-brainers, not necessarily in this order)

1. Bob Dylan








2. Neil Diamond







3. Leonard Cohen







But this is where it gets tricky. It's either Billy Joel or Paul Simon at #4. I know there are a lot of Paul Simon partisans out there and not a lot of Billy Joel supporters for whatever reason (or for a variety of reasons) but I've thought about this a lot in the past few years and I'm going to have to go with Billy Joel. Paul Simon's important, obviously, but Billy Joel's had a far greater effect on my experience and I just think he's cooler. They're both shockingly short, tiny men and they're two of the best songwriters of the 20th century. I love both of them and if I was forced at gunpoint to rewrite this list tomorrow it might come out different. But for right now there's two deal-breaking factors: If both Joel and Simon were playing in Portland at the same time on the same night and I had to choose between one or the other I would, without a doubt, choose Billy Joel. I'd rather hear "Only the Good Die Young" live than almost any Paul Simon song and (as anyone who knows me knows) I'm drawn to Billy Joel's almost complete absence of coolness and his complete (and entirely hypocritical) exclusion from the contemporary rock canon (which, frankly, says more about the post-'60's rock cannon than it does about Billy Joel any day of the week...but that's another conversation entirely).

So...

4. Billy Joel









And incidentally, the top three Jewish singer/songwriters of the 20th century also happen to be...the top three singer/songwriters of the 20th century (after #3 there's a big drop-off...sorry Billy).

And isn't it strange, on an entirely different note, that for everything people have to say positively or negatively about THE JEWISH PEOPLE as a whole and in the abstract that no one ever talks or thinks about the Jews as great bards...why is that? No, seriously, why is that?

Still Good