A great album is a companion.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t even need to possess it to be soothed.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve listened enough to be able to play it in your head.<\/p>\n
Now a detailed examination of history will tell us Norman Winter had a huge hand in breaking Elton John in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, one cannot forget there WAS hype.\u00c2\u00a0 But, the hype broke the single, "Your Song".\u00c2\u00a0 In an era when rock acts didn’t care for airplay on AM, didn’t even release singles, Elton strode a fine line.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t break first on FM like Cream.\u00c2\u00a0 He started right off on AM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 His album flew off the racks.\u00c2\u00a0 But after being on sale seemingly momentarily, it was followed up by another, a concept record of sorts, without any singles.\u00c2\u00a0 And it is this album, "Tumbleweed Connection", that cemented Elton John’s career.<\/p>\n
If Elton delivered "Tumbleweed Connection" to a record exec today they’d exclaim there was no HIT!\u00c2\u00a0 They wouldn’t release it.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d want Reg to go back into the studio, cut something catchy for the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s what’s great about "Tumbleweed Connection".\u00c2\u00a0 It contains nothing instantly catchy, nothing saccharine, nothing that can be categorized as a toss-off.\u00c2\u00a0 Every track is like the chapter of a novel.\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely necessary to the entire story, yet able to stand alone.<\/p>\n
Now they didn’t play all the cuts on an album on the radio back in 1971.\u00c2\u00a0 Where I was living they weren’t playing ANYTHING from "Tumbleweed Connection" on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore I could drop the needle and let the music unfold over me, like watching a movie, an old wave movie, one focused on plot rather than explosions.<\/p>\n
"Ballad Of A Well-Known Gun" is kind of a Stones album opener.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s raucous.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not quite hooky.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s truly an introductory chapter, a set-up.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why I got into the first side second.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, after hearing the first side of "Tumbleweed Connection" I flipped the record over and discovered "Where To Now St. Peter?"<\/p>\n
I was a gigantic Beatles fan.\u00c2\u00a0 But they were not what hooked me.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like "Jaws" made me a fan of the flicks.\u00c2\u00a0 Somewhere, deep in my youth, it was the sound that got to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe show tunes coming out of the living room stereo.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe folk songs around the campfire.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that certain music SOUNDED so good.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket.\u00c2\u00a0 When I heard it I felt safe, HOME, in a way I rarely did in the rest of my earthly endeavors.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew I could count on music.\u00c2\u00a0 It was my secret friend.<\/p>\n
"Where To Now St. Peter?" sounds like a secret friend.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the piano intro.\u00c2\u00a0 It brings me right back to my college dorm room.\u00c2\u00a0 After long days at Mad River Glen.\u00c2\u00a0 To hear that sound on a dark winter evening as a freshman in college, surrounded by people I knew not so well, was to root me, to make me know I could get through.\u00c2\u00a0 And the way Elton sings.\u00c2\u00a0 Not exactly like an angel, he’s not that high, but like someone surfing the clouds, someone not of this earth.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like a living dream.\u00c2\u00a0 My eyes were open, but I was in another world.\u00c2\u00a0 With him.<\/p>\n
And I won’t say the following track, "Love Song", was as good.\u00c2\u00a0 But I can hear that ticking intro in my brain.\u00c2\u00a0 The quietude.\u00c2\u00a0 Thirty five years on, "Love Song" is a keeper.\u00c2\u00a0 It touches me in a way that it couldn’t before my heart had been broken, more than once.\u00c2\u00a0 Love is what it’s all about, but why does it have to be so COMPLICATED!\u00c2\u00a0 All the victories on the playing field of life, on the corporate gridiron, they pale next to what happens in the bedroom, where you connect and gain strength to participate in endeavors where the sun shines.<\/p>\n
Then there’s the SWAGGER of "Amoreena".\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t do it much anymore, but for about five years after "Tumbleweed Connection" was released, I would sing to myself "Lately, I’ve been thinking…"\u00c2\u00a0 CONSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 This is not some diva crooning lyrics from the phone book, this guy is telling a STORY!\u00c2\u00a0 HIS story.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not SELLING it, he IS it.<\/p>\n
"Talking Old Soldiers"…\u00c2\u00a0 I always liked it.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the way it slowed down the tempo again, after the ultimately barnstorming "Amoreena".\u00c2\u00a0 "Love Song" and "Talking Old Soldiers" were downtempo compatriots on an album side of diamonds.\u00c2\u00a0 One ended up liking them like the less attractive children of a beautiful couple.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re drawn to them, knowing that deep inside, there are stories, there’s character, build by hardship the shining diamonds have never experienced.\u00c2\u00a0 And, "Talking Old Soldiers" is a set-up for "Burn Down The Mission".<\/p>\n
It’s the optimism of the intro.\u00c2\u00a0 Elton’s hayseed vocal.\u00c2\u00a0 But, when the song starts to RIP, you’re blown away, you didn’t expect it.\u00c2\u00a0 It might not have been dark and sinister, but the tempo changes in "Burn Down The Mission" rival those of Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 "Burn Down The Mission" was Elton’s live showstopper.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually fifteen minutes long.\u00c2\u00a0 But at just shy of seven minutes on "Tumbleweed Connection", it was still majestic.<\/p>\n
I got stuck on the second side.\u00c2\u00a0 I LOVED the second side.<\/p>\n
But finally satiated, I started to spin the first.<\/p>\n
"Country Comfort" was good, but I preferred Rod Stewart’s take (when I wasn’t playing "Tumbleweed Connection" I was spinning "Gasoline Alley").<\/p>\n
And I kind of liked Spooky Tooth’s "Son Of Your Father" better too.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I loved the song that much to begin with.<\/p>\n
But buried between these two tracks and the album’s opener, the aforementioned "Ballad Of A Well-Known Gun", is a gem.<\/p>\n
It’s like stumbling on a halfway buried object on the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 After the sun has set.\u00c2\u00a0 When you’re walking home.\u00c2\u00a0 "Come Down In Time" is the track you didn’t expect.\u00c2\u00a0 "Come Down In Time" is the song you marry.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you were caught off guard to begin with, you were intrigued, you paid attention, but the more you listened, you FELL IN LOVE!\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it be the harp, or the oboe, or the Paul Buckmaster strings, or Elton’s vocal…\u00c2\u00a0 Aren’t we all looking for something not beautiful, but meaningful?\u00c2\u00a0 Someone who’s lived, someone who’s lost, someone who’s had the same experiences, who will UNDERSTAND us?\u00c2\u00a0 What the modern record business has done is eviscerate the "Come Down In Time"s.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no place for them.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t only fail as singles, they garner NO radio airplay.\u00c2\u00a0 Why should they exist?\u00c2\u00a0 This begs the basic question of why one records music to begin with, why one listens to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe we’ve gotten too far from the essence.\u00c2\u00a0 That music is educational, and life-affirming.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s something that touches you in a knowing way, even though you might have never heard it before.\u00c2\u00a0 The core has been buried beneath a mountain of hype.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s tracks like "Come Down In Time" that made me a believer, a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Without them, you’ve got no religion.<\/p>\n
But the song I’ve been singing in my head today is the first side closer, "My Father’s Gun".\u00c2\u00a0 A companion to "Burn Down The Mission".\u00c2\u00a0 Ending a side.\u00c2\u00a0 Also in excess of six minutes in length.<\/p>\n
But "My Father’s Gun" never quite combusts.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a controlled conflagration.\u00c2\u00a0 It slowly comes to a boil, and stays there, it doesn’t overflow.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore, it takes a while for one to appreciate its greatness.\u00c2\u00a0 But not every classic track is over the top.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not a requirement for entrance into the canon.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, it’s about penetrating your soul.\u00c2\u00a0 And listening to albums like "Tumbleweed Connection" over and over again, songs like "My Father’s Gun" penetrated our souls.<\/p>\n
"My Father’s Gun" SOUNDS like the riverboat trip Elton sings about in its lyrics.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what life is, a lazy trip down the river.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to even paddle, the current will take you downstream.\u00c2\u00a0 The days will pass.\u00c2\u00a0 Just eat, sleep and keep your eyes open.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a full time movie, and you’re a star.<\/p>\n
I don’t consider myself an adult.\u00c2\u00a0 I still feel like I live in the shadow of my father.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a generous man, he looked after me.\u00c2\u00a0 And inculcated me with many rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of which I’m trying to unlearn in psychotherapy, others which have stood me well as the decades have passed.\u00c2\u00a0 But my father hasn’t been around for over a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 I keep wondering when…I’m going to feel like I’m steering.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of being buffeted by the effects of others.\u00c2\u00a0 "My Father’s Gun" is about picking up the father’s mantle, and carrying on.\u00c2\u00a0 On some level, I’m doing this.\u00c2\u00a0 Believe me, my father was as irreverent and outspoken as they come.\u00c2\u00a0 But he sired children.\u00c2\u00a0 He purchased property.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel I’m one step removed.<\/p>\n
Then again, in the kingdom of my mind, I feel I’m a baron.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a whole landscape that I’m firmly entrenched in, that I’m a participant in.\u00c2\u00a0 And the way I visit this world is to turn on the music.\u00c2\u00a0 On my stereo, on my computer, on my iPod, in my mind.<\/p>\n
Maybe this world is the real one anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 All those accumulated physical riches…none of them contain the beauty and fulfillment of music.\u00c2\u00a0 The games people play pale in comparison to a great record.<\/p>\n
It’s Grammy week.\u00c2\u00a0 Players have come to Los Angeles from far and wide.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking to set their flags upon the turf, to demonstrate their power over the domain.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of them are only interested in how you can help them get to where they want to go.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not real friends.\u00c2\u00a0 The real friends are the songs.\u00c2\u00a0 You listen to the songs and then venture out into the world, and try to make sense of it all.<\/p>\n
Today I couldn’t make sense of it all.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, at my most exasperated moment, I started to hear it, playing in my head, "My Father’s Gun".\u00c2\u00a0 A string was pulled taut all the way from Middlebury in 1971 to today, my life made sense.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope you have records that do the same for you.\u00c2\u00a0 If not, I recommend you start with this album, "Tumbleweed Connection".\u00c2\u00a0 Wherein Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy imagine an America they’ve never experienced and with a pure desire to get it right, focusing on mood, with talent and effort, they do.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know how they did it.\u00c2\u00a0 One marvels at spontaneous creativity.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s this we revere.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that which is made for a market, pigeonholed by reality, but that which is built upon a blank canvas, a creation that mere mortals cannot even envision, can’t contemplate until they come across it.<\/p>\n
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