“Hey…Could I walk you to art class?”<\/p>\n
“I suppose.”<\/p>\n
Her green eyes looked up at me and my whole world shrank to that
\nmoment. Every second was precious. Every step was agony. Should I
\ntry to hold her hand? What did “I suppose” mean? Was I sweating
\nthrough my shirt? There was nothing more precious to me than to see
\nher smile. Her voice was more beautiful than any music I’d ever
\nheard. She was my blonde-haired goddess. I was so close, day after
\nday, yet so far away? What could I do?<\/p>\n
At night, I would go home and put on the soundtrack to my life.
\n“It’s a little bit funny, this feelin’ inside,” Elton would sing
\nand I would be lost in a fantasy of how it could be if only I were
\nas cool as he was. Song after song about lost love, first love,
\nprecious love. If only I could get her to see how I felt. I gave
\nher the lyrics in a note I slipped into her locker. It was the
\nfinest poetry I’d ever heard. She never even acknowledged the
\nnote.<\/p>\n
The years go by and illusions are trampled one by one. The
\n15-year-old girl I was so much in love with turned out to be a
\nlesbian. I would have had a better chance with Elton John than I
\ndid with her! And the music of that first American album? In part,
\nit too was an illusion; a sappy, romantic attempt at radio success.
\nOf course, it worked. Teenagers everywhere were struck by the
\nsimplicity of “Your Song” and moved by the words. It sold.<\/p>\n
So, how do the songs hold up after all these years? First of
\nall, there is no denying that Elton John can play the piano. He
\nrocks as hard as Jerry Lee Lewis on a prissy day in tunes like
\n“Take Me To the Pilot” (whatever that means) and “Border Song”. His
\nband does not stand out as much as cause Elton and the words of
\nBernie Taupin to stand out. They are servants to the virtuousity of
\nthe singer-songwriter team. Yet, more than anything else, its
\nElton’s voice that carries this album. From a croon to a yowl in
\nhalf a measure, Elton controls emotions by sheer musculature.<\/p>\n
Stand-out tracks, even to this day, include: “I Need You To Turn
\nTo” — a short-but-sweet ballad that evokes loneliness by
\ncandlelight at the end of an empty day and “First Episode at
\nHienton” — a story of first sex that goes over the top. One line
\nreads, “I am who I am, you are who you are … Now Valerie’s a
\nwoman..” Rod McKuen, move over.<\/p>\n
Yes, it’s ridiculous. Yes, it makes my teeth hurt. But, why is
\nit that I can listen to this album after 27 years and remember
\nexactly what it was like to be 15 and in love? Song after song,
\nyear after year, Elton John and Bernie Taupin have provided more
\nguilty pleasures and prompted more mood changes in me than almost
\nany other artists. That, my friends, is a gift!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":24591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5678],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35795","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elton-john","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35795"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35795"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}