It was the autumn of 1970, and I was trying to recover from my first broken heart.
The first half of the year had been wonderful. Beginning in December 1969, as I came of age, I was involved with a girl for the first time. We went together all through the winter and spring, and she went home for the summer. She came back in September and broke up with me.
I was devastated, and while there would be worse later, the first cut was definitely the deepest.
That fall, I heard a new voice on the radio for the first time, a voice that seemed somehow different than I had ever heard before.
“It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside …”
Just as we lost the Beatles in 1970, we gained Elton John — and we never lost him.
And with him, we got some of the most memorable songs of our lives — “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” “Crocodile Rock” and so many others. But it was a reworked version of a song off a mid ’70s album that became his greatest hit ever.
“Candle in the Wind” was a song about a young man mourning the death of Marilyn Monroe. And when Princess Diana’s death in 1997 sent a nation into mourning, he reworked the song for her funeral.
“Goodbye England’s rose …”
I had a couple of opportunities to see him my last few years in California. He was doing a regular gig at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, but we had sort of stopped making our regular visits to Vegas before then.
For some reason, I started buying tickets again once we moved to Georgia. I saw Paul McCartney in 2014, Brian Wilson in 2015 and the late John Prine on his final tour in 2019.
I wrote the other day about Frankie Valli tickets, and now Elton John.
If it’s the last concert I ever see, it’ll be a good one to end on.