884. Where to now, St Peter?

Cool and soulful non-hit from Elton John‘s third album, 1970’s Tumbleweed Connection, which Philip Random maintains is his best “… mainly because it preceded the absurd levels of mega-hugeness that so devoured him by mid-decade. Apparently it’s a concept album concerning country themes, cowboys, dust, lust and, in the case of Where to Now St Peter? some heartfelt gospel yearning which truly sets the guy’s voice free. I mean, has any other white man, before or since, ever sung the word blue so thoroughly, completely, rhapsodically …?”

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959. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy

Reginald Dwight (aka Elton John) was beyond huge through the first half of the 1970s  – ten studio albums (plus one soundtrack) between 1969 and 1975 and none of them awful. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was the last truly good one though, with the title track working a sort of country feel that shouldn’t have worked coming from an English suburban kid, but it did. The 70s were like that. Lots of fantasies realized … until the cocaine took over.

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