Well this one's a biggie for me.  This is my favorite of all Elton John songs.  And I'll tell you the story of why in just a bit, but let's go over some stats first.  This tune was the title track to the most successful studio album of Elton's career in late 1973, which has now sold in excess of 30 MILLION copies around the world.  It solidified his success on the charts once and for all after a period of hit and miss between 1971-1973.  It contains 4 songs that went on to be signature blockbuster hit singles, as well as some of the most celebrated album cuts and live favorites of his entire career.  But we're not here to talk about "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" the album....we're here to talk about "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" the song.

Here in the US, it peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 in Canada, and cracked the top 10 all over the industrialized world.  It was also met with a lot of critical praise, something Elton didn't always enjoy from the trade publications.  Bernie Taupin's lyrics are characteristically poetic and whimsical.  They use the famed "Yellow Brick Road" from the "Wizard of Oz" book and film as a symbol of trying to escape the trappings of success and return to the simple and tranquil country life that Taupin grew up in.

However, for me, the defining characteristic of this song will always be Elton's vocal.  Elton was a brilliant falsettist as a young man.  Prior to his vocal surgery in 1986, he could seamlessly move back and forth between his falsetto, head voice, and chest voice in the studio and on stage.....even after beating his brains out on stage for 2 hours.  It was just effortless for him.  And his early catalogue reflects that.  So many of his early classics such as "Tiny Dancer", "Burn Down the Mission", "Rocket Man", "Daniel", "Philadelphia Freedom", "Bennie & the Jets", "Someone Saved My Life Tonight", and "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", just to name a few of the most famous, employ his amazing falsetto and blended voice prowess.

This has been a sticking point for me my entire career as a musician.  I've always struggled with my falsetto voice.  It's always been weak, and whatever it is that I do when I'm singing full voice, I blow what little falsetto I have completely out after a few songs.  I can use it to pretty great effect singing quietly to myself or harmonizing in the car....but I've never been able to make it much of an asset on stage or even really in recordings....it just hasn't ever been a strong pitch for me to throw.  I especially struggled with it in those teenage years when your voice is still developing and trying to decide what it is going to be.  I won't lie....I'm a little bitter about this.  I want more than ANYTHING to be able to sing like that....to blend my falsetto in effectively and effortlessly with my full voice....there are SOOO many songs I'd love to be able to sing with that tool in the box.  As it is, I generally have to find a key where I can just belt the whole thing out full voice, or I have to modify the melody to relative notes and replace the falsetto sections with the modifications.  It's been super frustrating and a blemish on an otherwise endlessly enjoyable career for me.

So, since this is a struggle for me, as you can imagine I've always been particularly mesmerized by singers who have no issue with it at all.  And Elton topped that list.  I will never forget the first time I remember hearing "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"....it may not be the first time I ever heard it, but it's the first time I remember it impacting me.  I was 15 years old, and I had rented a concert video on VHS (I swear to God, I'm not that old....I was just born shortly before LOTS of stuff started to change) from a place I would eventually work for a couple years, Hastings Books, Music, & Video.  It was the best place in town for all three by a mile, and they had an extensive video rental section.  The video I picked up was "Elton John: the Nighttime Concert", which was one of two videos released with selections of songs he performed in 1984 at Wembley Stadium in London on his world tour in support of the album "Breaking Hearts".  This particular one contained "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", and I'd never seen a vocal performance like that at a live show before....especially not one at a stadium in front of 70,000 people where you have to basically be screaming at the top of your lungs into the microphone.  What's more, is that it was an encore!  How the hell did he still have any falsetto left after all the gritty rockers he'd done all night?!  

I was so blown away that I literally rewound it and watched that performance at least 30 times in 24 hours before I had to return it.  And then I proceeded to rent it about once every three weeks for two sold years to do the same thing (for you 'youngsters' reading, there was a time before YouTube when you had to do things like that to see stuff).  I wanted more than ANYTHING to be able to sing like that.  I've never even come close, but I've tried, and I've tried publicly....both in person and online.  And I've been told straight up in both settings that my falsetto sucks and I shouldn't try to use it.  And sadly, they're probably right.  It's not in my nature to give up on a dream, but I don't know if this one is ever going to happen for me.  I'm at an age where that's becoming true of more and more of them.  I never fully give up, but I might be reaching some level of acceptance.  

But I digress....my journey with this song went beyond just that concert video.  When I saw Billy Joel & Elton John together in Ames, IA in 1994 during their first "Face to Face" tour, Elton had stopped playing this one live for a number of years....probably due to the fact that after his vocal surgery in 1986, he basically lost his falsetto and had to completely reimagine how to sing a bunch of his songs.  To his credit, he found his new voice and his new interpretations and sang with gusto and swagger, and completely won me over again.  However, I think at the time that this song was just beyond his imagination of how to do under the new circumstances, so it hadn't been in the set lists since 1985.  But, like me....Billy Joel LOVES this song.  So, he said during his set, "We're gonna do one of Elton's songs, and he doesn't do this song anymore, but I've always loved it....so I'm gonna do it."  When he launched into the piano intro for it, I completely lost my mind.  I didn't think there was ANY chance I'd get to hear that song that night.  It might be my most cherished memory from the whole concert, and believe me when I tell you....there are MANY.

I can't certify this, but I suspect that seeing how people reacted to Billy performing this tune during that series of shows together inspired Elton to think about how he might bring it back to life in his own shows, because within a year or two, he had fashioned a way to do it with his new voice.  He dropped the key a whole step so he could do all the falsetto parts full voice, except for the "ahhhs" during the sweeping pre-choruses....but, to his credit, he found a great harmony for himself to sing during those sections and let his high tenor backing vocalist cover the high falsetto part.  And you know what....it was GREAT.  I never got to hear him perform it the old way because I wasn't old enough to go see him in concert until after his vocal surgery....but I've had the pleasure of seeing him perform it the new way 6 times and I've loved it every time.

So, I've faced the fire and risked humiliation enough times.  I've done my best to do this song the way Elton recorded and performed it all those years....and I've been told as recently as last week that it sounds terrible.  In August of 2019 I made the best cover of it I've ever done for my YouTube channel.  I was freshly back from an amazing 6 week trip in Europe where I had visited 13 countries and seen Elton live in Graz, Austria, and I was feeling inspired and in good health.  A few months later I would be back in Europe on a cruise of the Mediterranean Sea, which was also completely amazing, but I went home with what I now know was the original strain of COVID-19, and I got majorly sick.  I had four weeks of crippling pneumonia, and then 4 YEARS of coughing to one degree or another due to "Long Covid"....and the coughing took its toll.  I eventually had irritated my vocal cords so badly from the constant coughing that I had no access to my falsetto on any pitch or any vowel sound, at any time, period.  I had to take 3 and a half months off from singing, and a full month off from talking to let it heal, and while it returned, it's still never been quite the same.  I don't know if my voice will ever recover enough to sing like I did that day in 2019, but I'm glad I caught myself on a reasonably good day and had the presence of mind to hit the record button.

I've performed it a few times over the past few years trying to use falsetto at my livestreams, largely feeling disappointed.  So, I'm saying for the record now, I will only perform it publicly going forward in the style of post surgery Elton.....unless privately I notice that I have significantly recovered and am doing it the same or better than I did in 2019.  We'll see....I still have the dream, but I'm ready to lean into the best part of my voice and spend a little less time lamenting what it's never been.  Maybe that's just part of growing older.  But I'll tell you what I don't regret....I don't regret having the dream.  To this point I've come up short on this one...but it's never wasted time to feel inspired by something and go through a journey of excitement and growth trying to make it a reality.  

Enjoy my cover of this song from a livestream show I did on July 26, 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and then check out my cover that I mentioned above from August of 2019.  And then, if you're a big enough nerd, check out Elton's epic performance that blew my mind from 1984 at Wembley Stadium, and a second performance from the iTunes Festival in London, UK in 2013, using his post surgery modifications. 

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.

 

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