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