I love this song.  And I love the story behind it just as much.  The year was 1972, and the album was called, "Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player."

First, musically this is a stunningly beautiful number.  The melody sticks in your head immediately, as though it's a song that has existed since long before electricity did.  It's also notable that Elton played a Fender Rhodes Electric Piano on the recording rather than acoustic piano...something not seen in any of his other single releases until the late 1980s

The lyrics have been difficult for many people to fully understand from the day it was released because Bernie Taupin's final verse was cut in favor of repeating the first verse during recording.  According to Taupin, the final verse is what makes the meaning of the previous words clear.  Luckily, he has also shared what he was writing about.....the lyrics were inspired by a story he read in a magazine about a Vietnam veteran who had been wounded in combat and returned home....and wanted to escape the attention he was receiving from the media and others about it.  

It was a beautiful and masterful pairing of lyrics and melody, with a softness and tenderness....a sympathetic sense of understanding for the character....added by the use of the Fender Rhodes.  Elton immediately counted it among his very favorite songs he and Bernie had written together, and still considers it to be in his top 10 over 50 years later.

I was a smash top 5 hit in the US (#2), the UK (#4), and Canada (#1), and is generally considered one of the signature songs of his entire career.  But here's the part that really gets me....his record label was incredibly reluctant to even release it as a single.  First they said, "No way should we release it as the first single....it's too sombre."  Then after scoring a #1 hit in America with "Crocodile Rock", they said, "It would be a marketing disaster to follow up something that happy with something this sad."

Elton himself had to put his foot down and absolutely insist that this be released as a single....he was so certain of its potential that he pledged to pay for all the marketing costs himself if it didn't hit.  The label finally relented and released it, but put forth a very bare bones, shoestring budget effort in marketing it to DJs and record stores, feeling that they were right and it would fail, and wanting to minimize their losses.  But Elton himself believed in this record so much that he barnstormed the country....visiting every radio station in person that he possibly could, playing it at every show and asking the audience to call their local stations and request it to be played....he gave it his all because he believed in it.  And he was right....the world fell in love with it.  The only reason it failed to hit #1 in the US was because Paul McCartney happened to already be occupying that spot with a masterful loving tribute to his wife Linda called "My Love".

It's easy to assume that the reason I love this story is because Elton stood his ground and was proven right, and everything worked out great.  But actually that isn't why I love it.  I love it because Elton believed in something strongly and insisted on giving it every chance to work out....he didn't know for sure that it would, and nobody else could have known either.  And there's just as good of a chance that it wouldn't work out.  But how do you ever know if you don't ante up and play your cards?

Are there things in your life that you believe in but you have been reluctant to lean into because of other people's resistance, or logic, or a thousand other excuses?  Is your fear that it might not work out standing in your way of exploring something you feel all the way to your bone marrow would be good for you?  I can't promise you that it will succeed the way you dream it will....it might, and it might not....but I can promise nothing will come from it if you do nothing with it....and the regret of not trying might well exceed the regret of failing.

Enjoy my cover of this song from a livestream show I did on July 1, 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and then check out one of my favorite performances of it by Elton himself below. 

If you'd like to explore my piano method more deeply, my best students use my video courses and join me for conversation and twice monthly Q&A Livestreams in my private community...you can find it all HERE. Thanks.

If the video doesn't show above, use THIS LINK to see it on YouTube

If the video doesn't show above, use THIS LINK to see it on YouTube