To say that you are doing a lost classic from the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road might be a little far fetched but we might as well try. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road has to be the best album that Elton John and Bernie Taupin ever put out as a writing team. Yellow brick road was Elton’s 7th album and had as many hits on it as most stars have in a entire career.
The three singles that were released from the record “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “Bennie and the Jets” are still highly played today on pretty much anything you listen to today whether it be the radio (local or pay type like Sirius). Then you can add a few other classic hits like “Candle in the Wind’ which now is a major hit in two versions, the original about Marilyn Monroe and the 1997 version that he and Bernie re-wrote after the untimely death of Princess Diana. Gray Seal which happens to have some great lyrics that even Taupin can’t explain. My all time favorite Elton John and Bernie Taupin song Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding which I have asked my family to play while dumping my ashes if and were they choose to. I would have loved to do a post about his 11 minute masterpiece but there is no way in hell that it is a Forgotten Classic.
Not many people back in the 1970’s wrote song lyrics that were so directly about someone that was part of the LGBT community. Or for that matter a young 16 year old bi-prostitute as others like to think. What does matter is that this song rocks beginning to end. And in the end we can only sense sadness for dear Alice since she was a “Poor little darling with a chip out of her heart
It’s like acting in a movie when you got the wrong part
Getting your kicks in another girl’s bed
And it was only last Tuesday they found you in the subway dead”
What a great song and album done with some great musicians. Besides Elton we have the late Dee Murray on bass, Davey Johnstone on guitar, Nigel Olsson on drums, Ray Cooper on tambourine and special guest singing background vocals Kiki Dee. “All the Girls Love Alice” is one of those rocking songs that made Elton such a big star in the 70’s (besides his outrages outfits). If you haven’t heard it in a while maybe it’s time to sit back and waste 5 minutes of your time. Then when you replay it over and over you will figure out that you didn’t waste the time after all. You just enlighten your life a little more.
Forgotten Rock Classics 
I just dont see this song the way most people seem to. Alice is a rich girl (spawn of a public school, which in England means an exclusive high priced private institution) who isn’t bi, she’s a lesbian (she couldnt get it on with the boys on the scene). The doubled barreled name is one of those upper crust monikers like Huntington-Smythe. She’s a trust fund kid not a prostitute. And she probably OD’d in that subway.
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Elton John and Bernie Taupin were an awesome duo. Alice is such a sad song and certainly a first in the LGBT world of music. I listened to “Funeral for a Friend” on YT. What an entrance! So this is how yo want to go out? I truly hope that won’t be for decades and decades. Take care and thanks for the memory trip down the yellow brick road. Clare
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I read something about Elton and Bernie that they rarely where together when they did songs. Bernie would write them then send them over to John. Don’t know if that is true but it is pretty amazing how they connect the dots together so well if that is/was the case. You got to admit that there isn’t a much better song to be played then Funeral for a Friend to someone that has passed on.
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Great choice for your funeral, but I hope you don’t need to use it for decades and decades and decades. I thought they were close at first but then had a rift and worked separately. Not sure – lots of stories in the Naked City!
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