Elton John: "Rocketman"

A good song is the thought you have while looking in the rearview mirror. It's the thing you forgot to tell your lover, or your friend, while you were in that person's company. A good song is a work of reflection.

Elton John's "Your Song"--which I'd thought was Elton's work but was apparently Bernie Taupin's work--counts as a "rearview mirror" moment. The speaker has just been in his lover's company. Now he's thinking back on that time. The awkwardness of the song--which seems sincere and spur-of-the-moment--is likely the product of some real thought.

It's a bizarre song. The stammering young man is infatuated, and he doesn't have any money, so he can't buy something to demonstrate the level of his infatuation. All he can do is write a song. "This is your song." There's a hint of gay pride or gay defiance when the speaker emphasizes: "You can tell *everybody* that this is your song."

What I particularly like in the song is the speaker's calling our attention to clumsiness: "These verses--well, they've got me quite cross." "I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue--(but) yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."

Another thing I like: Heather Headley's rendition. The definitive--and, really, the *only* rendition. How much of an artist is Heather Headley? When she gets to "keeps it turned on," she adds an "on and on and on," with a crescendo, so that form matches content: She is actually demonstrating what the "tap" looks like when it is turned on *in perpetuity* ....That lady knows what she is doing, always. Watch Elton John struggle to retain dry eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYCVh7MTHaM

And enjoy "Rocketman" this weekend.

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