Yellow Brick Road

 When I was a teenager I would go through phases with the music I listened to, sometimes this meant I would listen almost exclusively to a single artist. Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, and Elton John were a few of these artists. While eventually I stopped listening much to their music these artists remained near and dear to my heart. I didn't always pay a lot of attention to the words of the songs I listened to, I would just listen without much thought about what was being said. Goodbye yellow brick Road by Elton John was one such song. I loved the song but didn't really pay much attention to what was being said. Oh I know it talked about an airplane and and owl and a horny backed toad, as well of course a yellow brick road, it might have been about the Wizzard of Oz or maybe not.

I had my own yellow brick road I was looking for, though I never made the connection between Elton saying goodbye to it and me wanting to find it. That really wasn't language I would have used. I grew up in a sleepy little agricultural town, and really couldn't see my future in such a dismal place. My deepest fantasy was to move to New your, make a lot of money and marry a fashion model. Practical issues however kept me from ever getting to New York, I didn't even get out of town, but ended up attending college at a liberal arts college in my home town, and while there were no New York fashion models at the college. There was a girl from New Jersey who looked like a model, and had even been told she should become one, but who didn't because her parents wouldn't approve. I married that girl and started down my own yellow brick road. It lead to Florida and retail management, but my career didn't have a lot of success, because it wasn't really what I was made to do. As time went by the virtues of that sleepy town I was from, began to be more apparent. The significance of agriculture to a healthy planet did as well. Eventually my journey down that yellow brick road started to feel like a mistake.

I had moved on to other music, one of the artists I listened to was Sarah Bareilles, and I heard that she had covered Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and as Elton John was near and dear to my heart for having been someone I listened to back as a teenager, I wanted to hear it. I looked it up on You Tube and found it, and then played it, and as Sarah sang that song I heard it and what it was saying for the first time. It was as if someone had pried up a brick from that road and hit me upside the head. I had to actually look up the lyrics of Elton's version to see if he really had said those things.

Even though I didn't actually live on a farm, and my Dad who was an electrician, wanted me to “Do something better with my life” I should have stayed there in that small town. The words to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road are these.

When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man

You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh, I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

What do you think you'll do then
I bet that'll shoot down your plane
Than it'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again

Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh, I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

Yes, Elton really did say all those things, and as I listened I could almost hear him saying, “I told you so”