Sir Elton John is one of the most recognized and best-selling musical artists of all time! Yet, you may wonder, why is Marlin writing about Elton … considering that I cannot remember when I ever actually listened to an Elton John performance — save one!
In case you are the one out of 100 individuals somewhere on this planet who’s not familiar with Sir Elton … very simply, he is:
- A British singer
- A pianist
- A composer, one of the most successful in history in a partnership with Bernie Taupin
- A Kennedy Center honoree
- A winner of multiple Grammy Awards
- An inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- The father of two girls
- Commonly nicknamed “Rocket Man.”
And finally, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
My part of this story began on a Saturday afternoon in late January 1979 … my wife Alicia and I were walking through the downtown area of Perth, the largest city in Western Australia. I was there at the behest of the owners of 6KY Radio, who had elected three years earlier to bring our Bonneville Beautiful Music/Easy Listening sound to their market and had requested a “tune-up” visit. I was able to work out bringing Alicia along, as we were due to be in Hawaii two weeks later for a Bonneville International Corporation managers’ meeting, and spouses were expected to attend as well.
Back to our Saturday afternoon stroll, as we walked, we passed a record shop that had a speaker out front playing music. Alicia was immediately intrigued by the melody playing, and since I could not identify it, it was my job to run inside to find the identity.
As you’ve likely concluded by now, it was the melody listed above … Elton’s only composition that’s basically instrumental. He composed it in 1978 — just months before we heard it on the street in Perth — and it is the last track on his “A Single Man” album.
Coincidentally, this video of Elton’s performance of “Song for Guy” was shot on the set of the Australian music television show Countdown, which originated from TV studios in the Melbourne area on the east coast of the continent, and was broadcast in December of 1978, just a month before we heard it.
In his autobiography ‘Me‘… Elton explains that he named the song after Guy Burchett, a 17- year-old messenger boy for his company who had died in a motorcycle crash “at virtually the same time I was writing the song.”
While I can’t say that this melody ever joined the Easy Listening/Beautiful Music listeners’ “Greatest Hits” list, it certainly became a favorite of mine, my wife Alicia, and thousands upon thousands worldwide. Once I returned to our headquarters in New Jersey, I included it in the musical programming we supplied to more than 100 radio stations across the United States, Canada, and Australia. And beginning in 2002, it was part of the music library, which played on the SUNNY/Escape channel on XM Radio and SiriusXM.
I cannot close out this Sir Elton John story without also sharing with you his singing of his hit song” Candle In the Wind” at Great Britain’s Princess Diana’s funeral in London’s Westminster Abbey in 1997 … which he had modified to say “Goodbye, England’s Rose.”
“Goodbye, England’s rose
May you ever grow in our hearts
You were the grace that placed itself
Where lives were torn apart
You called out to our country
And you whispered to those in pain
Now you belong to heaven
And the stars spell out your name
And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind . . .”
© Elton John
Your thoughts? Your comments? Thank you for reading.
