The one song Elton John never gets tired of: “Something magical about it”
An artist as prolific as Elton John is bound to have a few songs in his catalogue that he’s tired of performing. While iconic tracks like ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ may still hold their charm, songs like ‘Crocodile Rock’ might make him want to pound his head against a wall every time he plays them. However, before achieving any significant success, John knew he had something special with ‘Empty Sky’ on his debut album.
It’s just a shame no major radio stations bothered to hear it. While John and Bernie Taupin were bound to become a songwriting force, their first outing had more than a few rough edges, including songs that leaned more towards singer-songwriter fare à la Leon Russell.
That wasn’t even done by accident, either. John was brought up in the era of James Taylor and Carole King, so it wasn’t out of the question to crib from those icons. On the other hand, the first image that comes to mind when most people think about Elton John usually isn’t some lonesome pianist trying his hand at writing wistful tunes.
Even with all those qualifiers, ‘Empty Sky’ is still an extremely fun listen. There are a few lyrics where Taupin might be trying to outdo himself and make something Bob Dylan would be proud of, but he never sacrifices having a great line over trying to get as overly wordy as Mr Zimmerman could get on a handful of his later records.
John even thought that the title track deserved a better shot because of how long it had hung around in his mind, saying, “’Empty Sky’ has something magical about it. It came together so brilliantly and still sounds so good. It’s hard for a piano player to write a rock and roll song. It sounded like a Stones song.”
Then again, there was a lot more ground that needed to be covered before John managed to snag a major hit. ‘Your Song’ may have been on the horizon, but in the tradition of artists like David Bowie before him, John did take some time to settle into his persona, eventually going from having a handful of hits off his records to stone-cold classics from front to back. Hell, even a handful of his later work has songs that pull directly from ‘Empty Sky’. Since John had envisioned it as a Stonesy-type piece, it wasn’t exactly shocking when he decided to go full tilt into Keith Richards’ territory when making a track like ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ years later.
Compared to the rock and roll excess that he would tear through on his own, hearing ‘Empty Sky’ just sounds cute in retrospect. There was a hard road ahead before donning the lavish suits, but hearing a lonesome kid at a piano dreaming of life beyond his wildest dreams is almost wholesome in its own weird way. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but you can listen to this tune and practically see the twinkle in John’s eyes as he sings it.
