My fourth installment comes on the eve of my birthday. Birthdays aren't really an event for me, but tonight I find myself the slightest bit south of happy. Not surprisingly, I also find myself listening to my favorite song of all time which is, coincidentally, a little melancholy.
Elton Johns' "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
Real lyrics in Gold with my misheard lyrics in blue
When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
When are you going to learn
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I didn't sign up for you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues
This voice to young to be singing the blues
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society how
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plow
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Back to the howlin' gold owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Oh I've found that inside my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road
What do you think you'll do then
I'll bet that'll shoot down your plane
I'll bet they shoot down your plane
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again
Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground
Sniffing for takings like you on the ground
Lots of misheard lyrics here, but those are the ones I misheard as a very young boy. And for the sake of my stubborn streak, I continue to hear them today. This is how I've heard this song since I was about six years old. Whether it's an actual memory or a contrived one, I remember laying on the carpet in front of the stereo that sat on the entertainment center (two pine boards and some bricks) in our living room absolutely captivated by this sound.
The really stubborn part is that my version of the lyrics is quite a bit more pessimistic than Bernie Taupin's. I changed "I bet that'll shoot down your plane" to the vengeful "I bet THEY shoot down you plane." "I didn't sign up with you" becomes a more direct "I didn't sign up FOR you." And "When are you going to land" is twisted into a truly desperate "When are you going to LEARN?"
Don't get me wrong; the song as written and performed is as perfect as it could be. I love every note. The strings, the drums, and that guitar, which reading tonight I found out is a guitar played through a Leslie speaker. That's a speaker more typically used to give a Hammond Organ the wobble in its sound but used here with incredible effect.
I also read that this song is in F Major. I had always thought it might be in D Minor, which as Nigel Tufnel told us is "the saddest of all keys." Elton can't sing it anymore in F Major because of the surgery he had on his vocal chords in the 80's and now sings it in Eb Major. But the truth is I don't care to ever hear him perform it live in either key. It's too perfect as it was recorded. Any performance would fall short. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear the final mix in the recording studio when they realized they had it.
And I don't want anyone reading this to think I'm sitting here listening to this song wallowing in middle-aged birthday misery. I'm not. I'm just not terrifically happy for whatever reason, and I'm listening to my favorite song in the whole world over and over, which happens to be a little melancholy. The song actually makes me happier in a way. It's perfect in my eyes, and it really does represent the ideal of how things can be, which is the point of the lyrics Bernie Taupin wrote before I corrupted them. So perfect that, "displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall." (Points to you if you know that one.)
