Songs like this sometimes twist my brain around a bit.....not musically....historically.  Let me explain...

Every artist with a long and successful career needs to generate some live staples.  You know you're going to play all or most of your biggest hit singles at just about every show, but that doesn't guarantee that you have a good emotional arc for your audience, especially if you have succeeded to the point where you get to play really big rooms like arenas and stadiums.  It could very well be that you have a lot of ballads resonate with the listening public and then show up in concert on the hook to play 12 slow tempoed songs.  You can play some up-tempo numbers, but large audiences will only go along with you so far with music they don't know.  So, the best possible circumstance is to have some commercial success with some rockers so that you get the benefit of giving the audience a hit they expect AND serve the energy in the room to its fullest at the same time.

Well, this was the hit showstopper Elton had been looking for....that staple closer that would bring the house down every time.  And he was lucky because this one wasn't just a fun rockin' tune that appeared on one of his albums....it was actually a hit single.  It rose to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, so it was recognizable and anticipated by his audiences at live shows.

What twists my brain into knots about songs like this though is that there was a time when there was this artist named Elton John who was making a splash, getting radio play, charting hits, and touring the country.....and this song hadn't even been written and recorded yet. 

I've seen Elton in concert 9 times....I can't even begin to imagine one of his shows without building to the energetic climax of "Saturday Night..."!  It's as if the whole show is working toward it all night.  And yet....he was out touring by 1970, and this song wasn't a part of his career until the very end of 1973.  What must it have been like before this song, and a slew of other hits, were part of his live arsenal?

What was it like to hear a legend perform before he was a legend?  

I was musing about that this morning, and then it reminded me of something very important.  We are all always in a perpetual state of becoming.  None of us are experts, rockstars, competent, or great at anything right out of the chute....we become those things over time as we find what we're interested in and put in the time and repetition to develop.  We don't all have all of our greatest hits written and recorded yet.  All we can do is put on the best show we can with the music we have already created and let the experience grow with time.

The only thing that can jeopardize that process of becoming is impatience and dissatisfaction with the process.  Are you being too hard on yourself for where you are right now on your journey with the piano?  Do you have unrealistic expectations about what you should be able to do quickly?  Are you unfairly comparing yourself to people who have years of focused experience and then assuming you simply have no talent?

Don't forget to give yourself permission to walk before you run, and crawl before you walk....and remember....you just have to learn how to move before you can even crawl.  The process is what it is, and in spite of what creative marketers say, there's no shortcut.  Elton couldn't write his showstopper concert staple until he was ready....he had to write a lot of other less good songs in order to develop the skills to write this one, and he had to develop a level of confidence and stage presence that I assure you he didn't have in 1970 to be able to deliver this one with such energy and electricity from 1974 forward.

And as such....all of us need to play piano badly before we start to play it well.  Embrace wherever you are in that process of becoming...there will always be room for more improvement, but you only get to live the moments when crawling is the best you can do once.  Enjoy it for all its worth, with confidence that it is leading you to even better things.

Enjoy my cover of this song from a livestream show I did on June 14, 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