It could be called songs of self understanding. A balancing on the tipping point between discarding self-knowledge after a painful struggle, and the equal impulse to keep pressing on. There is a blurry boundary between a self-reflection worth sharing and an outright narcissism; something that hovers beyond the me-myself & I but avoids the realm of the spiritual, but in some way appropriates its intangible lessons. Much of this dialogue with the spirit relates, in the case of Elton John, to the relation of dealing with abuse. And in the recording industry that is often leeching as an art form by professionals specialized in drawing flesh and blood from creative types.
Ticking:'An extremely quiet child,' they called you in your school report, 'He's always taken interest in the subjects that he's taught' So, what was it that brought the squad car screaming up your drive, To notify your parents of the manner in which you died? At St. Patrick's every Sunday, Father Fletcher heard your sins, 'Oh, he's unconcerned with competition, he never cares to win, But blood stained a young hand that never held a gun And his parents never thought of him as their troubled son.... read more: http://www.jesterradio.com/lyrics/eltonjohn-ticking.htm
Impartiality and being neutral does not seem to be part of the human genetic makeup.Just to be impartial for fleeting moments is a challenge. This ultimate sweet spot is not within reach grasp,but it acts as a zone of creativity that can be touched at times, sensed, but never possessed; though the artist should not give up on that account. It seems to be that peak where life is acknowledged, accepted and affirmed with its thorns, cuts and all. The means to affirmation, for John is the music, or to be more precise, the feeling of self which thranspires through their music.If the music is alive,- beyond the gravity of market forces-, if it is genuine, and true to oneself, everything life doles out can be accepted. At least this is a message from Elton John. Its a significant insight since the tendency is to auto-mutilate for the errors of youth creating a punishing cycle beyond common sense like Kafka’s The Trial. Its not surprising that Elton John’s work descended into a profound creative block after his “classic” period. What else was there to say or to take us that had not been trawled over before? Its the Arcadian mystery of finding the zone between the pastoral and violent that makes the human narrative bot conceal and reveal her side of lightness and obscurity; the third way between the sovereign state of the Apocalypse and waiting for the Messiah to return or present themselves according to your belief.
Poussin. the triumph of pan. Josh Kroeker:I began looking at the works of Nicolas Poussin and David Teniers, in order to gain a perspective into their art that might help me find clues in Arcadia. While looking through Poussin’s paintings from the mid-1630’s, I noticed a familiar shape in the background of the Triumph of Pan (1635-37). In the top left of the painting, partially covered by trees, is the shape of the main mountain in Arcadia. read more: I began looking at the works of Nicolas Poussin and David Teniers, in order to gain a perspective into their art that might help me find clues in Arcadia. While looking through Poussin’s paintings from the mid-1630’s, I noticed a familiar shape in the background of the Triumph of Pan (1635-37). In the top left of the painting, partially covered by trees, is the shape of the main mountain in Arcadia. read more:http://www.andrewgough.co.uk/poussinmm.html
Captain Fantastic raised and regimented, hardly a hero
Just someone his mother might know
Very clearly a case for corn flakes and classics
“Two teas both with sugar please”
In the back of an alley
While little Dirt Cowboys turned brown in their saddles
Sweet chocolate biscuits and red rosy apples in summer
For it’s hay make and “Hey mom, do the papers say anything good.
Are there chances in life for little Dirt Cowboys
Should I make my way out of my home in the woods”
Brown Dirt Cowboy, still green and growing…
http://dreamexpressmp3.blogspot.com/2010/12/elton-john-2006-captain-and-kid.html
“A confessed alcoholic, he was prompted to stop drinking only by the death of AIDS victim and close friend Ryan White. Prone to mood swings and depression, Elton has made many enemies. He considered suicide rather than marry fiancee Linda Woodrow. And the only dialogue he has had with his father is their bitter exchanges on the tabloids. “Quite frankly, some of his songs are rubbish,” Stanley Dwight says.
Elton’s professional life has also been tainted by anger and enmity. Ray Williams, the talent scout who paired him with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, was fired as a result of Elton’s irrational tantrums. Steve James lays the responsibility for the death of his music publisher father, Dick James, on Elton, blaming John’s prolonged and venomous litigation. Elton’s relathionship with Taupin has had many highs and lows as well…. Read More: http://www.eltonography.com/books/the_many_lives_of_elton_john.html a
"Although the shape is similar to the mountain in Arcadia, this alone was insufficient evidence for me to accept that they were one and the same. However, when reviewing Triumph of Bacchus, I noticed further clues in the symbolism of the landscape. On the right-hand side of Triumph of Bacchus and Sacrament of Baptism can be seen what appears to be a small tower that Poussin placed in both paintings. It was after this discovery that I suspected that Triumph of Bacchus, and not Sacrament of Baptism, was the original far right side component to the four-painting scene...." Read More: http://www.andrewgough.co.uk/poussinmm.html
More than perhaps even McCartney and Lennon, John and Taupin have exposed the fragile spectrum between the child and the adult: like the Buddhist wheel of life and all its arcane tangents and detours with a destination of an Arcadia worth reaching: everyone can relate to John and Taupin’s emphatic artistic condition in which life is worth living, despite anguish and suffering and their elaboration of this theme is often implied and oblique making it register more convincingly.
…City slick Captain
Fantastic the feedback
The honey the hive could be holding
For there’s weak winged young sparrows that starve in the winter
Broken young children on the wheels of the winners
And the sixty-eight summer festival wallflowers are thinning
For cheap easy meals and hardly a home on the range
Too hot for the band with a desperate desire for change
We’ve thrown in the towel too many times
Out for the count and when we’re down
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
From the end of the world to your town
And all this talk of Jesus coming back to see us
Couldn’t fool us
For we were spinning out our lines walking on the wire
Hand in hand went music and the rhyme
The Captain and the Kid s
From here on sonny sonny sonny, it’s a long and lonely climb
", I got hung up for awhile on Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, a fantastic play melding past and present, life and death. The play features “Et in Arcadia ego,” a Latin phrasEt-in-Arcadia-egoe that translates as “And in Arcadia, there am I.” Even in paradise, death is never far. It’s a recurring sentiment in art and culture of the Baroque period...." read more: http://inkville.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/et-in-arcadia-ego.html
ADDENDUM:
Ben Todd: Now Sir Elton John has spoken about his relationship with his own father, revealing that he was a disciplinarian who never watched the singer play a concert.
Sir Elton, who started playing the piano when he was just three and went on to attend the Royal Academy of Music, said his father Stanley Dwight had no interest in his budding career even though Mr Dwight had also been a keen musician, having played the trumpet.
‘You know, my father never came to hear me play. Not ever,’ said Sir Elton, who was born Reginald Dwight. ‘He was a tough and unemotional man. Hard. In the RAF. He was dismissive, disappointed and finally absent. I just wanted him to acknowledge what I’d done. But he never did.’ Mr Dwight, who died in 1992, had wanted his son to have a more conventional career and steered him towards banking. He then divorced Sir Elton’s mother Sheila when the singer was 15. The 63-year-old said: ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to relate to kids. He left us, remarried and had another family, and by all accounts was a great dad to them. It wasn’t children, it was me.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1351997/My-father-let-says-new-dad-Sir-Elton-John.html#ixzz1CtwH7V6U
Read More: http://www.billtormey.ie/2011/01/07/elton-john-surrogacy-child-abuse-and-language-distortion/
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/feneric/occultandrock.html a
"The footnote, by Elizabeth Prettejohn, Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol, England, is as follows: Some viewers read the rightmost figure as male, but the hairstyle and the design of the sleeve are closer to female figures in Waterhouse's work of this date. The figure may be not quite finished, and the features read as androgynous to twenty-first-century eyes (as do many of Waterhouse's figures of both sexes, particularly in this later period). If the figure is male, then Waterhouse has left out one of Boccaccio's seven women, which seems improbable given his addiction to groups of seven. "Some viewers read the rightmost figure as male"? Some? Am I really part of the minority when I say that the furthest figure to the right is male? ...." read more: http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html
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