Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
	Produced by Gus Dudgeon
	Released on October 5, 1973
	UK CHART POSITION #1 . . . US CHART POSITION #1 . . . 7x PLATINUM RECORD
	Find it at GEMM
MCA2-10003 cover [high resolution scan]

K ronomyth 8.0: ELTON ON MAIN ST. This is Elton’s White Exile: the double-album chef d’oeuvre that encompassed in a single vista the breadth and depth of his musical world. The albums before and immediately after were twin peaks (typically a ballad and a rocker) in a forest of forgettable midtempo songs. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a tour de force (what’s the French translation for pretentious weiner?) with eighteen songs where nearly all stand tall, crowned by two great ballads (“Candle in the Wind,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”) and two great rockers (“Bennie and the Jets,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”). In other words, just the sort of multilayer wedding cake to dispel the notion that Elton had irreversibly entered the kitchen of cookie-cutter complacency. Beyond the best-known hits, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road contains credible forays into nearly every avenue of music that Elton had previously explored: 50s rock & roll (“Your Sister Can’t Twist,” which has a keyboard solo that XTC fans will find prescient), island music (“Jamaica Jerk-Off”), smartly arranged and pristine pop (“Grey Seal”), and a handful of character studies featuring outlaws (“The Ballad of Danny Bailey) and the out-of-place (“All The Girls Love Alice” and, of course, the aforementioned Candle). Like every great double-album should do (Blue Moves, I’m looking at you), Yellow Brick rewards each return with a handful of keepsakes. Maybe you’ll find yourself singing a few lines of “Sweet Painted Lady,” or it could be the chorus of “Harmony” in your head, but you’ll never walk away from this Road empty. Elton’s 70s albums are admittedly a mixed bag; some of them are great (Captain Fantastic), some are mostly stems and seeds (Caribou). Few of them are half as good as Goodbye, which for my money is the best thing Elton’s ever done.

P2-21747 cover [high resolution scan]

TRACK LISTING

Record One

1. FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND
2. LOVE LIES BLEEDING
3. CANDLE IN THE WIND
4. BENNIE AND THE JETS
5. GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
6. THIS SONG HAS NO TITLE
7. GREY SEAL
8. JAMAICA JERK-OFF
9. I'VE SEEN THAT MOVIE TOO
   
   Record Two
   
1. SWEET PAINTED LADY    3:52
2. THE BALLAD OF DANNY BAILEY (1909-34)    4:24
3. DIRTY LITTLE GIRL    5:03
4. ALL THE GIRLS LOVE ALICE    5:13
5. YOUR SISTER CAN'T TWIST (BUT SHE CAN ROCK 'N' ROLL)    2:41
6. SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING    4:50
7. ROY ROGERS    4:10
8. SOCIAL DISEASE    3:45
9. HARMONY    2:49
   
   2-CD reissue bonus tracks
   
19. WHENEVER YOU'RE READY (WE'LL GO STEADY AGAIN)
20. JACK RABBIT
21. SCREW YOU (YOUNG MAN'S BLUES)
22. CANDLE IN THE WIND (ACOUSTIC MIX)
    
    All lyrics by Bernie Taupin. All music by Elton John.
    

CREDITS

ELTON JOHN -- piano, organ, Farfisa organ, elecric piano, mellotron, Leslie piano, vocals
DAVEY JOHNSTONE -- electric guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, steel guitar, banjo, backing vocals
DEE MURRAY -- bass, backing vocals
NIGEL OLSSON -- drums, congas, tambourine, car effects, backing vocals
BERNIE TAUPIN -- lyrics
Ray Cooper -- tambourine (13)
Kiki Dee -- backing vocals (13)
Leroy Gomez -- saxophone (17)
David Hentschel -- A.R.P. synthesizer, engineer
Del Newman -- orchestral arrangements
Prince Rhino -- vocal interjections (7)
Steve Brown -- co-ordination
Ian Beck -- outside cover illustration
David Larkham & Michael Ross -- inside cover illustrations, art direction
David Scutt -- inside cover illustrations
David Costa -- thanks for art direction

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