Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

The Rolling Stones had just recorded Goats Head Soup in Kingston, Jamaica, and Elton John wanted some of whatever the location had given them. He booked Dynamic Sound Studio in Kingston for early 1973 and traveled there with lyricist Bernie Taupin, producer Gus Dudgeon, and the band. What they found was a studio with poor equipment, a piano that was not up to the work, political protests in the streets, and the logistical chaos of the Joe Frazier vs. George Foreman boxing match happening simultaneously in the city. They left Jamaica before recording anything of substance.

They relocated to Chateau d'Herouville, an eighteenth-century French chateau where Elton had recorded his two previous albums, and the sense of urgency from the wasted Jamaica trip accelerated everything. During a typical day, Taupin would be at the typewriter at the breakfast table, Elton would be at the electric piano, and as the band came down for breakfast, Elton would write a new song and they would play it before eating. By the time the sessions were finished they had enough for a double album, which nobody had planned for. Seventeen songs across four sides of vinyl, seventy-six minutes of music.

"Bennie and the Jets" was not released as a single until American radio stations started playing it without label approval, R&B stations in Detroit in particular recognizing its crossover appeal before anyone at the record company did. Producer Gus Dudgeon added fake crowd noise to the track, including a sample from a Jimi Hendrix concert, to make a studio recording sound like a live arena performance. It went to number one. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road also contains "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," and the title track, which is Bernie Taupin writing about his own childhood memory of the first film he ever saw. This was Elton John at the full peak of his powers, writing an album a year and making it look effortless while doing it in two weeks in France.