Elton John’s self-titled album (that’s the cover over there at the right) wasn’t his absolute first. But it was the first one released in the US, landing here in 1970. As was common for me then, I didn’t latch onto the album on my own. I didn’t listen to the right radio stations, and never read music reviews. For Elton John, I relied specifically on the judgment of a woman who (since high school) I’d hoped might be my first girlfriend.*
Ida could neither sing nor play an instrument. But she had what I thought of as a musical voice. And she had a habit, when introducing me to new music, of reciting the lyrics aloud. I can still remember her voice saying:
It’s a little bit funny…
This feeling inside…
I’m not one of those who can…
Usually hide…
She’d pause melodramatically at the end of every line — or rather, where she thought the lines should break — and look at me expectantly. See? she seemed to be saying. This is the genius of poetry, is it not?
[Ah, the innocence of youth…]
Even people who never heard the entire Elton John album remember or otherwise know that song, of course. But for my money, the really good stuff — the music and lyrics that really lodged in my head, and kept coming back to me over all the decades to come — was buried in the middle.
“Sixty Years On” and “Border Song” appeared back-to-back. Memorability (and of course John’s voice) aside, they have little in common: the first, a (for me) haunting, lovely intertwining of gentle Latin-rhythmed music and lyrics, sort of nibbling around the edges of a mournful dirge for what might yet be; the second, a gospel-like, straight-ahead, piano-pounding rocker whose unambiguous lyrics hammered loudly at the door of social injustice.
And then there was, yes, “Take Me to the Pilot.” Nobody back then had any idea what the hell the words meant, and I doubt if anyone yet has done more than poke at them. I’ve read various reviews of the album which single this song out as an example of Bernie Taupin’s absolutely worst, most self-indulgent lyrics. But oh my, the music… It’s another rocker, and it’s — well, I’ll tell you, it’s like Velcro: covered with tiny little hooks. As rock critic Robert Christgau says, speaking of what he calls “the “Take Me to the Pilot” effect” in the midst of a very ambivalent Village Voice review of John’s career up to 1975:
…there are few people who like rock and roll, or any pop music, who remain unreached by Elton John. It’s not just that he’s so pervasive, although that helps; quite simply, the man is a genius. No matter how you deplore his sloppiness, or his one-dimensionality, or his $40,000 worth of rose-colored glasses, you will find yourself humming “Take Me to the Pilot”…
All three songs easily merit a midweek music break — especially for a blogger currently fighting to rid himself of their earworms.
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* In the end, she never became a girlfriend at all. But Ida was a good, good friend, and passed on to something like her reward in 2001.
