The song Elton John wrote for his own funeral: “I like very sad music”
Rock and roll has always been about making songs that make you feel good to be alive. From the first time that Chuck Berry ever played music, artists were willing to make something as energetic as they could to celebrate the joy of getting together to perform. Elton John was no exception when he first started putting together timeless melodies with Bernie Taupin, but ‘Funeral For a Friend’ came from one of the most morose requests he had ever gotten.
For a partnership so often associated with Technicolor flamboyance, the idea of opening a blockbuster double album with a slow-burning instrumental about mortality felt audacious. Yet that was always part of John’s appeal. Beneath the sequins and oversized spectacles sat a composer with a deep affection for drama, capable of pivoting from euphoria to elegy without missing a beat.
Then again, has anyone ever looked at an Elton John and thought that he was going to make depressing music? Even though he had his fair share of internal struggles in the past, one look at the Caribou album cover is enough to tell you that this is a guy more about playing up the flashier aspects of life rather than singing about death.
Not that there weren’t at least a couple of dour John tunes throughout his career. ‘Indian Sunset’ from Madman Across the Water is already a gripping tune about the horrific killings of Native Americans at the dawn of American settling, and ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ was the happy by-product of John’s attempt to kill himself before he had even got famous.
When preparing material for his follow-up to Madman Across the Water, John knew that he had a double album in the making. Even though every double album by law is meant to be a little bit bloated and more than a little bit self-indulgent at times, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road earns every victory lap it tries to take, turning in one classic after another in completely different genres.
Although no album of this length is safe from a little bit of filler like ‘Jamaica Jerk-Off’, John got the idea for ‘Funeral For a Friend’ at the insistence of his producer. Since someone with John’s fashion sense needs to go big right out of the gate, John said that he was working on the changes on the piano because he was picturing the kind of music that he wanted for his own funeral.
When talking to Classic Rock Stories about the creation of the song, John recalled, “[Producer] Gus Dudgeon had always said I should do an instrumental. One day, I was feeling down, and I said to myself, ‘What kind of music would I like to hear at my own funeral?’. I’d always liked funeral music anyway. I like very sad music of any kind.”
As if it wasn’t clear by every press photo he has ever taken, this would be the funeral music to end all funeral music. Putting together the kind of morose sounds that you would in a Catholic church ceremony, ‘Funeral For a Friend’ is the kind of tune that feels like it’s going to soundtrack the death of a royal monarch, as John keeps changing different keys throughout the song.
What makes it so striking is its patience. Rather than rush toward catharsis, John allows the piece to unfold in stately fashion, each shift in tone arriving like a procession turning a corner. By the time it collides with ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, the gloom has been transfigured into defiance, grief morphing into something galvanising.
Even though the song ultimately crashes into ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, the chord changes practically illustrate the different periods of grief. You go from crying in the first section to being lifted as the track moves along before finally moving on to acceptance with that final sustained piano chord at the very end before the vocals come in. John had his fair share of dark days ahead of him, but ‘Funeral For a Friend’ is the sound of the darkest days of someone’s life, garnering the best results possible.
