Mellow - Elton John
Song of the Day #6
Apple Music link: https://music.apple.com/us/album/mellow/1440910513?i=1440910677
I feel a lot of music snobs sometimes feel a bit nervous rating Elton John as a major artistic giant of the 70s because of how easily Elton John could emotionally manipulate his audience to reach his goals. A lot of the time, Elton tries to appeal to the most primitive parts of your senses and intelligence, and when he became more serious, his ambitions elevated to such sky-high levels that you would think the nonchalant piano man would surely fail. On paper, Elton John is the kind of artist who should have been truly awful, which causes many to not even give him a chance. Those people are missing out: his musical genius is such that he is able to use that magical combination of excellent melody-writing, classy musicianship, brute expressiveness, and Taupin's intelligent lyrics to make his music succeed on all accounts.
Take this song for example. Yes, he's forcing this song to be a big universalist McCartneyesque anthem. Yes, he uses every cliche in the book, from the serious piano intro to the introspective verses to the bombastic chorus. Yes, the song uses repetition to get its point across. And you know what? It really, really works. Every time I hear it, I get swept off my feet by its epic feel, its melody being absolutely gorgeous. I don't know whether this song is sincere at all, but Elton's piano playing and singing are more emotionally affecting than dozens of "bleeding" singer-songwriters. It has the exact same effect as ballads like "Maybe I'm Amazed" or "Hey Jude:" it's hard to tell why those choruses have their soul-nourishing greatness, but boy, do they have a lot of it.
I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't released as a single seeing how much potential it had. Even when discussing Honky Chateau, I never see it brought up as a big highlight. Well, I'm here to say it's every bit as good as anything Elton put out in his golden period, so you got to go right away and hear it: Elton John's career from 1970-1975 is one of those rare, shining cases where artistic genius coincided with commercial success. This song is an example of why Elton's good fortune was absolutely deserved.
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