purchase [Love Lies Bleeding]
Back in the early 70s, I just about wore out the grooves listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. ("Wore out the grooves" harks back to the time when people spun a vinyl disk on a motor-driven turntable, scratching the ridged surface of the plastic with a diamond stylus: the more you played/re-played the music, the more likelihood of your permanently wearing down the ridges/grooves.)
The first song off the album, "Funeral for a Friend" segues directly into "Love Lies Bleeding" and the two are considered and generally performed as a single piece, although Elton has commented that they were separate pieces that just fit back to back because one ends in the key of A and the other begins in A. Together, they make up a powerful start to a powerful album. His best.
As for the lyrics (Bernie Taupin) - if you go beyond the driving piano/guitar/drums (there are no lyrics to Funeral), it's not the happiest Valentines Day message:
The roses in the window box
Have tilted to one side
Everything about this house
Was born to grow and die
As I revisit Yellow Brick Road on account of the theme relevance, I recall that there are several of my favorite (and I am not an overboard Elton John fan)/several of his best pieces all on this one the album: "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's Alright," "Bennie and the Jets," "Your Sister Can't Twist," and of course, "Yellow Brick Road "...
Starting a little before Yellow Brick Road, but almost inseparable ever since, Elton John's go-to guitar player is Davey Johnstone. Similarly, beating the drums on this version is the inseparable Nigel Olsson (see his name prominently displayed on the front-facing bass drum). Both of them adding vocal embellishments here.
(Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
