It’s the story not the song, that makes the music move along: Chewing the fat with Elton & Leon
There was a point in my life, a much more innocent time as they say, when the word gay only meant happy to me. I had no idea about gay at all. Of course I am talking about gay as in same-sex, hated by right-wing closet dwellers, gay. Who knew?
Now mind you, I am all for gay, straight, black, white, coke, pepsi…whatever works for you. My rule is: be a good person, enjoy your life and listen to good music. Like I said, way back when younger, I was gay all the time and didn’t think twice.
I do remember starting to notice a few things as as I got older. I remember that I loved the show, “Soap“. Billy Crystal was a gay character on that show (first ever on TV?)…hmm. Then I started to hear things about people? Just how did Rod Stewart get all of that in his stomach? I always thought Queen was just the name of the group? That’s not the kind of duet I imagined Mick Jagger and David Bowie doing…?
And then there was Elton.
I’m not sure what year Elton came out of the closet, but I am guessing it was somewhere around 1973. That year Elton released his double LP, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road“. I was only one year old then. I didn’t get around to listening to it until the mid 1980′s.
I wasn’t a student of rock and roll’s folks and lore back then. I wasn’t even sure that a song could be about something let alone have some secret, “Paul is Dead” message hidden in the grooves. Throughout the entire summer of ’84, I screamed the refrain from Bruce’s “Born in the U.S.A.” at every BBQ, county fair and baseball field there was in New Hampshire. I had no idea it had to do with the hardships of soldiers returning home from Vietnam. Who knew?
I remember the first couple times I listened to this Elton album. Musically it was jarring; it was all over the map. The long spacey intro to “Love Lies Bleeding” then right into “Candle in the Wind” then up and down on the roller coaster again with “Bennie and The Jets” into the title track. Whew. Yeah, all over the place.
The song that really tripped me up was, “All the Young Girls Love Alice”. I gravitated to it because of it’s raunchy, throw-away 70′s guitar riff. The song was just strutting along with that sorta pounding piano and bopping base and then…it all just stopped. There was only Elton’s voice sing this tale about an innocent young girl named Alice. OK, great…but I wanted to hear the guitar. Where did it go?
Wait, what did he say?
All the young girls love AliceTender young Alice, they’d sayCome over to see meCome over to please meAlice, it’s my turn today.
At the time I thought, “hmmm…that didn’t sound like Alice was so innocent after all”. “Can this stuff really be talked about in songs?” “Is he really talking about a strung-out, sixteen year old lesbian prostitute that died in the London subway?”
Yes he was. Hot damn.
That album…I was listening to it on vinyl…had lyrics in the gatefold of the cover. I read all about Alice there. I read about all the characters in that album there. It was eye opening. No shit…there is more to the song than meets the ear!
It was then that I started to actually listen to the lyrics of songs all the songs I then loved and those I would soon devour.
That was it. I graduated. Once you cross that line from listener of to lover of music, you look go looking for those stories embedded in the songs. Then you seek out other music heads and you talk endlessly over bottomless drinks about those stories.
As far as I am concerned…and so long as it isn’t Don Henley, Mike Love or Eddie Van Halen…hearing these stories from the artists themselves is the next best thing to being there when the songs were recorded.
Apple has a little marketing gimmick they call the “Celebrity Playlist Podcast“. I posted about this just about a year ago. It is a simple, but effective idea. The artist(s) pick songs…theirs or by other artists…and tell stories about why they like them or how they were effected by them. Some of the celebs aren’t great in this setting, but others are gems. The ones I wrote about were from Mick Fleetwood and Jeff Beck. Fleetwood’s was excellent and Beck’s just a notch below.
There was one posted just a couple weeks ago that featured Elton John and Leon Russell. As we all know (HYPE!), they released a album together this year. Elton and Leon get together to ping-pong song selections from their lists and swap stories about why the tunes matter to them. The combined list is a who’s who of legends and couple current billboard bobble-heads.
Elton is the Champion Saint of up and comers. He practically shepherded Ryan Adams on to the scene and then played foil to both GaGa and Eminem on national TV. GaGa and Eminem grace Elton’s list. Leon stays true to his roots and admittedly is “stuck int he past”. Good for you, Leon.
Its funny to hear just how different these two beings are. Leon swings low and Elton is high over the top. The fact that these two can be juxtaposed in the studio and still come out making one killer sound is what it’s all about…the music.
If you are a fan of songs and stories you should check this out. It’ll have you feeling gay…
Download it here or listen to it to it below.
