Border Song – Video 16 – Album “Elton John”

Ha!  As promised, I am posting another vlog in rapid succession to the previous vlog.  In fact, I am actually living up to the title of “Daily Elton John Piano Cover.”  Today’s cover is Border Song, the seventh song from Elton John’s self-titled album.  Border Song was Elton’s first song to chart in the U.S. getting all the way up to number 92 on the Hot 100.  The song also made it to number 34 on the Canadian charts which marked Elton’s first time on the charts in any country.    

The song is one of Elton’s first use of gospel balladry.  I really enjoy when he writes with a gospel feel because his forceful piano playing really accentuates the gospel groove.  This song contains a Paul Buckmaster string arrangement, though much less significant than the one in Sixty Years On.  And, the album cut also utilizes a choir to enhance the gospel feel.  This song is most often played by Elton onstage without his band.  The solid bass line of the song sells itself brilliantly from Elton’s nine-foot grand piano. 

The lyric fits well into a gospel song, or rather the gospel music fits well to the lyric.  It is about alienation and bigotry.  Though most of the song was penned by Bernie Taupin, Elton actually wrote the last verse which most supports the theme of bigotry.

I hope you enjoy my rendition of Border Song!

Holy Moses I have been removed
I have seen the spectre he has been here too
Distant cousin from down the line
Brand of people who ain’t my kind
Holy Moses I have been removed

Holy Moses I have been deceived
Now the wind has changed direction and I’ll have to leave
Won’t you please excuse my frankness but it’s not my cup of tea
Holy Moses I have been deceived

I’m going back to the border
Where my affairs, my affairs ain’t abused
I can’t take any more bad water
I’ve been poisoned from my head down to my shoes
Holy Moses I have been deceived

Holy Moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease
There’s a man over there what’s his colour I don’t care
He’s my brother let us live in peace
He’s my brother let us live in peace
He’s my brother let us live in peace

© 1969 Dick James Music, Inc.

Sixty Years On – Video 15 – Album “Elton John”

I know in just the last vlog, I promised to keep production level up for the vlog posts in this new year…yet it has been nearly two months since I last posted.  When I made the statement to produce more vlog posts, I had not anticipated that my computer would fail.  Well, it did.  But now, I am finally back in the tech-age with a new and improved computer, and the vlog must go on!

Today’s post is the sixth track from the Elton John album, and one of my all time favorite Elton John songs, Sixty Years On.  I love the transformations that Elton has made to this song throughout its various live performances.  Of course, being on the Elton John album, this song contained a vast string arrangement.  I believe, however, that the way Elton performed this song stripped down with the three piece band at the Troubador Club in 1970 is one of the major reasons that he truly broke himself as such an over-night sensation in America.  I chose to play the song similar to that arrangement, stretching the solos between the verses and varying the intensity of the song from start to finish. 

Bernie Taupin’s lyric is about an old war vet, who is lonely but unwiling to perpetuate his isolation.  The music wraps itself beautifully around this haunting lyric.  At Elton’s 60th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, he opened with a brilliant rendition of this song, and shared with the audience that when he first wrote the song, he never could have imagined actually playing it for tens of thousands of people on his 60th birthday.  And Elton John certainly has not had a lonely existence in his more than 60 years of life.

I hope you enjoy my rendition of Sixty Years On.  Keep your eyes peeled for the next few vlog postings as they should be coming pretty rapidly.  Border Song and The Greatest Discovery are recorded and ready to go.  Thanks as always for having a look at the vlog.

Who’ll walk me down to church when I’m sixty years of age
When the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the grave
And señorita play guitar, play it just for you
My rosary has broken and my beads have all slipped through

You’ve hung up your great coat and you’ve laid down your gun
You know the war you fought in wasn’t too much fun
And the future you’re giving me holds nothing for a gun
I’ve no wish to be living sixty years on

Yes I’ll sit with you and talk let your eyes relive again
I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same
And Magdelena plays the organ, plays it just for you
Your choral lamp that burns so low when you are passing through
And the future you’re giving me holds nothing for a gun
I’ve no wish to be living sixty years on

© 1969 Dick James Music, Inc.