I read somewhere that this week is the 40th anniversary of the release of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which means I have been listening to records for 40 years.  I was seven in 1973, obsessed with AM and later FM radio, and this album made a huge impression on us all-myself, my friends, and their older brothers (who actually owned this album).  At that time Elton permeated pop radio, and I was still too young to have such a contemporary rock album, but I heard his songs while my mom drove me to school or when we drove to Florida for vacation, on the FM car radio; and especially at my friend John’s house in Dumont, gazing at his brother’s copy of Elton’s gigantic, amazing album cover.

The album cover itself.

This is one case where the cd is lovely, and sounds great, but it can never recreate the impact of the album cover itself- staring at it on your bed for hours, or like we did at John’s house, on the table in the middle of the one bedroom that four boys shared, with bunk beds in each corner. It just reeked of adolescence, sex, and bursting into adulthood; with rock n roll on the radio and the jukebox. Me and John would sit and look at the cover and listen to the record and wonder what real girls were like, aside from his brothers’ girlfriends. Punk goddesses, like Bennie? Tragically sad and beautiful like Marilyn, or confident like your funky, sophisticated older sister? I still remember being entranced by the sweet painted lady, the dirty little girl, and wondering why all the young girls loved Alice… We wondered about Danny Bailey, Roy Rogers, Jamaica Jerk offs and social diseases, and Elton swigging from a whiskey bottle; we were amazed by this album, and its cover.

The 30th anniversary cd booklet does present each song’s lyrics with the corresponding image from the cover, and digging it in that format is different- each song is sliced off into cd booklet size pages, where before it was this amazing monstrosity that was bigger than you were. Simply put, the vinyl album cover is really the only way to fully enjoy the original artwork. Go get your copy and look at it! For those of you born too late, go get a vinyl copy! You’ll soon fetish it! For those of you with a vinyl copy and a turntable… you know what to do.
And if you had the singles, then the B sides were mostly extras. So if you had “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” as a 45, then you had “Jack Rabbit” AND “Whenever You’re Ready We’ll Go Steady Again” on the flip side. If you bought “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” as a 45, like millions of other people did, then you got “Screw You (Young Man’s Blues)” as the B. These B sides are standout tracks from these sessions, and should not be missed. The B side for “Bennie and the Jets” was the album track “Harmony”, which actually went to number one in the U.S. as a separate entry; no wonder- it’s astonishing.

The effect of all 21 of these songs and the cover was staggering to me then as a 7 year old, and I’m still staggered today. This album taught me so much about life, and if I can say I’ve had a musical career, it started there in John’s room. I was so lucky to have encountered Goodbye Yellow Brick Road when I did, all those 40 years ago. It still gives me chills, challenges me, and fills me with memories of a more innocent time.
About six months after I first heard it, I asked my dad if I could get an album for my 8th birthday. He collected albums himself, so it was a no brainer. Of course I asked for Caribou, then Elton’s newest album. I’ve never looked back.

Still staggered.