Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Poll. Pick Your Favourites & Discuss.

It’s 45 years old this autumn. Arguably Elton’s best known album. Released at a time when he was incredibly prolific. It was his second album of 1973 and the fact that it was a double and the material of such a high standard is astounding. He’d even put out another LP, Caribou, a few months after this!

GYBR had lots of hit singles, but the other tracks are great too. For many it was his career peak. Perhaps only Captain Fantastic, 2 years later, coming close. I don’t think he ever produced an album this solid again, but I do reckon most of his albums have something worth hearing on them.

So, did you buy this when it first came out? I didn’t. I couldn’t afford it! What did you think of it? It’s certainly been re-released enough over the years! It would be easy to believe Elton only recorded this album.

Tell your stories of hearing the record for the first time. What songs are special to you? Did you see him tour the album? How many editions of it do you own? Pick your favourite songs. You can have as many as you want.

 

Great album.

Of course I voted most of the songs & love the album artwork

 

Elton John’s "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" epitomises his musical legacy.
It’s grand, sprawling, epic, audacious, mercurial, multidimensional, kaleidoscopic...

Underneath the lyrics of the title track,
"I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man"

...the title song is full of numerous intangible feelings of loss, desire, sadness, regret.
About going back to where one belongs.
(My personal remembrance: my older brother graduated from high school, and went off to college back East. Sad memories...)

Like many songs on the classic album, it’s wrapped up in great melodies with amazing harmonies.

Other great songs are
- the epic exhaustive sound track “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”
- the multi-lived melancholic “Goodbye Norma Jean”
- the buddy Bowie tribute “Bennie and the Jets”
- the raucous “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”
- deep track “Grey Seal”

The album closer "Harmony" is a short, shimmering gem of a song; it was lost in the musical flood of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

It has a direct, beautiful vocal intro, "Hello, baby hello..." and has a surplus of amazing vocal ear candies... Quite appropriately, Elton's melodic harmonies with his band.
The ahhhs at the end are as beautiful and breathtaking as Bohemian Rhapsody and Beatles’ Because.

A surprising treat at the end of an epic album.

It would have been yet another great 45 by the pre-Sir Elton.

 

Review from NME in October 1973.

 

One of the first lps I ever purchased. Obviously loaded with hits but there are some equally great lesser known songs on here like, "The Ballad of Danny Bailey" and "All the Girls Love Alice".

 

In my top three Desert Island Discs. Would be a tough choice between this and the White Album.

I remember getting a job cleaning out a garage at my friend's house, and his mom paid me by buying this album for me the week it came out. Can't even begin to isolate songs from the whole.

 

I found a cassette of this album free at a yard sale... And loved it. So I picked "I love the artwork" and these songs (although there isn't anything awful on the album at all):
Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Candle In The Wind
Bennie And The Jets
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
The Ballad Of Danny Bailey
Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
Roy Rogers
Harmony

 

Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the album I think I possess the most copies of.
* UK Jewel case CD 'Classic Years'
* Japanese 'shrunk vinyl sleeve' CD
* 40th Anniversary box set w/the Bryan Forbes documentary
* Classic Albums series documentary on DVD w/the extra material not shown on TV broadcast
* Deluxe Edition 2xCD set
* Yellow vinyl LP tri-gate sleeve (1973)
* Transparent DJM purple vinyl LP
* Another UK (gatefold sleeve) LP
* Another tri-gate (black vinyl) LP
* Single pocket sleeve LP, MCA pressing with lyric inners as opposed to gatefold
* Back to Black 180gm vinyl LP
* 40th Anniversary vinyl LP
* A vinyl copy signed by Elton John
* A vinyl copy signed and inscribed to me by Elton John
* A spare UK DJM that I have with me to play in work
* BluRay Audio copy
* Spotify
* Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on UK DJM 7" single

Think that's it. Great album. Love it to bits. Great songs that were singles. Great songs that have become live staples. Deep cuts. Love the artwork. I actually have a photo on my wall of my son when he was about two and a half years old just holding a copy, looking at the sleeve, fascinated. Terrific record. The total package.

 

I'm rather partial to my vinyl copy.

 

Bloody hell.

 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a favorite among EJ albums for me. It's the first of his albums I had on CD -- actually purchased by my college roommate when he discovered that I had brought a CD player with me to college. At the end of our year together, he moved out but left the CD with me, since he didn't have a CD player himself. I was happy to keep it.

My favorites, which seem to be the group favorites so far:
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Candle in the Wind
Bennie and the Jets
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

 

Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Candle in the Wind
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
This Song Has No Title
I've Seen That Movie Too
The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
Harmony

It's okay, but he's done better... A bit misleading on my part. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, without a doubt, is a masterpiece and deserves all the accolades it has got. I am a huge Elton fan. But somehow, this album is not one I listen to quite often and it never really has been. A lot of the songs are brilliant, Elton at his best... But you also get silly filler like Dirty Little Girl and Social Disease. I can listen to them and enjoy them, but the comprehension of the album dies off a little with songs in that vein. Personally I was always more a fan of Madman Across the Water, the self titled album and Captain Fantastic, Blue Moves, and later albums.

But it doesn't get better than I've Seen That Movie Too and Candle in the Wind; amazing compositions. The instrumental Funeral for a Friend is a stunning piece of music as well; the very effective, atmospheric synthesizer opening part was always a killer in concert, even if the melody is meant in a somber manner.

 

Still not as good as ‘Dont Shoot Me.....’ but a very fine piece of work. I tired of Jamaica Jerk Off and Roy Rodgers quite quickly but Dirty Little Girl and All The Girls Love Alice I still play today. The diamond is, without doubt, Funeral For A Friend.

 

It's the only Elton John album in my collection. I was never a big fan of his, but this album is great. I have the MoFi LP, the SACD multi channel and the HD download. Used to have the original fat boy CD, but traded it for the "remaster"...that was way before I found the forum to see the error in my ways.
Anyway, I was in a band that used to play Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. I was the bass player in that band and found playing that song so enjoyable. Dee Murray was so underrated.

 

it's a great album. to me the first half is significantly stronger than the second half, but it's still a great album.

 

Don't shoot me was written and recorded in 1972 I think, so really GYBR was his only album of work in 1973

 

Second album I ever bought. I was 14. It was somewhat confounding to me at that age because I loved it so much, beyond the music. I couldn’t understand why it affected me so. The emotions on some many levels it conveyed and the beautiful artwork, lyrics, and harmonies were very powerful and utterly pierced my soul. I’m nearly 60 and to this day it produces an emotion in me that no other album can. Mystical.

 

I love it. I could have voted for everything but I restrained myself to just my absolute favorites. I think there is so much more to this album than the singles. This is true of Elton's entire classic period but the singles are the only songs anyone ever talks about. My top favorites are the epic opening salvo "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and the beautiful "I've Seen That Movie Too" and "Sweet Painted Lady." Just amazing work.

I'm a huge Elton (and Bernie) fan and this record is a deserved classic. It was the first full length I bought from him and it remains a tried and true favorite. Great artwork too.

 

I find most EJ albums to be patchier than a Saxon fan's denim jacket. GYBR is no exception. For me, a trio of greats: Harmony; Roy Rogers; GYBR, plus plenty of 'okay', and tedious toss, in equal measure. The less said about Jamaica Jerk-Off the better.

Taupin always had a misogynistic streak, and it's in full flow here on Side Three stinkers: Painted Lady/Alice/Dirty Little Girl. The latter is execrable.

 

1970's must have album! The B-sides are wonderful as well. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding all the way to Harmony the last track, are good through and through. Classic Elton John, favorite studio album of his from the 70's.



My story: One of the many artists I listened to in the 80's and 90's that I discovered had a career LONG before then.

 

Love Lies Bleeding (and to a much lesser extent Funeral) is the greatest track Elton ever did. I actually do love it a lot--the only Elton song I can say that about. Unfortunately he is my wife's favorite, so I've heard the rest of this stuff way more than I ever wanted to. I leave the room now and go do something else once Love Lies Bleeding is over.

 

It's all good and much of it is great. One of EJ's finest albums.

Scott

 

I really dig “Dirty Little Girl”. Not very PC, but it’s grungy and sardonic in all the best ways.