What does “If I was a sculptor, but then again, no” mean?
Pop music has had its fair share of nonsensical lyrics, but few have been quite as brazen as this peculiarity. Perched in Elton John’s 1970 love single, ‘Your Song’, the lyric stands out as an ugly oddity, like a dog dirt in a Chelsea Garden, by virtue of how neatly honed the surrounding words are.
In essence, the ballad depicts a songwriter with little else but their art to give, steadily shaping up a musical gift to their loved one. In a meta fashion, by the end, the fully formed song is a brick-by-brick musical Taj Mahal of devotion. Bernie Taupin was keen to show the toil that takes in the lyrics themselves, essentially saying to the partner, ‘By the way this wasn’t easy’.
It’s the songwriting equivalent of leaving the receipt on the gift. So, the wild digression of the bumbled lyric, “If I was a sculptor, but then again, no”, showcases how he toiled over the track so much, hoping to get it just perfect for his better half, that there were even lines he discarded. However, it has to be said that this explanation does the lyrics a lot of favours.
I mean, beyond the mangled “but then again, no” digression, there’s the likely off “or a man who makes potions in a travelling show” that immediately follows. I mean, I’m sorry, Elton, but before you get onto your transient alchemy work, I believe you were going to say something about sculpting? Alas, you seem to have simply trailed off as though you’ve never even heard of the Bust of Nefertiti and proceeded to tackle an even more hogwash vocation when there were so many other rhymes staring you down (‘if I was a writer, I’d pen you a poem’, no?).
Perhaps it’s a sign of the ultimate declaration of love that even the song written as a gift for his other half is unconsidered in a delirious whirlwind of emotion, but ultimately, that kind of explanation doesn’t excuse it. This line remains one of the most baffling to ever pass under the nose of the public without much comment. It just goes to show how a great melody can mask just about anything.
Who was ‘Your Song’ by Elton John written about?
The song was written by Elton John’s long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin. The pair met after Elton failed an audition. His piano playing and compositional skills passed muster, but his lyrics weren’t deemed good enough. Elton knew this to be the case, so on the way out of the record label audition, he asked the receptionist whether any good lyricists had applied lately. She told him about Taupin, Elton made a call, and the rest is history.
Nevertheless, Taupin was only 17 at the time, and he views ‘Your Song’, one of the first tracks they ever wrote together, to be a very naïve look at love. “The original lyric was written very rapidly on the kitchen table of Elton’s mother’s apartment in Northwood Hills in the suburbs of London, if I recall, on a particularly grubby piece of exercise paper,” Taupin recalled on Smooth Radio.
While it might have come about flippantly, written in as little as ten minutes, Elton has always suspected it was about one of Taupin’s girlfriends. However, the lyricist has never revealed who. He told Music Connection: “It’s like the perennial ballad ‘Your Song,’ which has got to be one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music, but I think the reason it still stands up is because it was real at the time.”
Concluding: “That was exactly what I was feeling. I was 17 years old and it was coming from someone whose outlook on love or experience with love was totally new and naïve.”
When was ‘Your Song’ by Elton John released?
‘Your Song’ was originally released by Three Dog Night in March 1970 after Elton had been the opening act for the band on their tour and allowed them to record the song. He released it himself later that year in October and it went on to be his first top ten single.
