I was reading the other day in a book by Carlos Antonio Silva “En un disco la vida y otras crónicas musicales” (Our life in one album and other musical chronicles), published in 2007 by Fundación Editorial El Perro y la Rana, the chronicle "Elton John and anecdotes of a yellow brick road." The following quote inspired me to revisit the widely known and beautiful song that probably played on the radio at all times during my childhood in the 70s in Caracas.
“When past experiences become simply memories, fertile ground for storytelling, we unwittingly stay put in a corner of nostalgia. Like a constant reflection of a time spent in dreams, promises and illusions, there it is the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road under the imprint of Elton John at his best... Elton John represents that safe and dialectical bridge between what the Beatles left and all that technical stuff represented by the Symphonic Rock of the seventies. ”
"ELTON JOHN Goodbye Yellow Brick Road DOLP FOC" by vinylmeister is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
I ran to YouTube and besides enjoying the original 1973 Elton’s song I was surprised to find out a jewel that I want to share with you today. A cover by Californian singer Sara Bareilles in a concert at Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, in 2013. Sara's performance left me speechless, and the same thing happened to the very Elton John, as it seems.
Also available on YouTube is part of a fundraising event in New York in 2014, when Elton praises Sara about her version of his classic. His words, "I was sure blown away by the version of the Yellow Brick Road song. I’ve never heard anyone sing one of my songs like that, ever. I can’t thank you enough for giving me your talent and blowing my mind with that version because when someone sings your songs, they copy them, she made it her own, that’s brilliant, you know, it’s a hard song!” That was at the “Hot Pink Party” the annual gala of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. After "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" cover by Sara, Elton joined her for a duet of Sara's song "Gravity."
In October 2013 Bareilles told Rolling Stone magazine: “Elton John is a huge influence and an artist I’ve listened to since I was a little girl. That song in particular sort of took on a new meaning for me. I really started to dissect the lyrics and think about the storyline of that song: You can get handed the Emerald City but there’s still no place like home. ”
Sara Bareilles was born in California in 1979. She is a pianist, guitarist, and composer, and according to Wikipedia, Bareilles achieved mainstream success in 2007 with the hit single "Love Song" and “has sold over one million albums and over nine million singles and downloads in the United States and has earned seven Grammy Award nominations.”