17 - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John)

Back to the howlin' old owl in the woods...huntin' the horny back toad! Insane use of harmony here, and the perfect melodies to glue them all together. Masterful work by both Elton and Bernie here. A GEM.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. It's one of my favorite Elton John songs, and it always has been. There's something so magical about this song. It's so it's so colorful with the chords. Uh it's based in F. Okay? And it does so many things that you do that you can do with the key of F. It's really pretty wild. And it opens up like a book. We got. Okay, so because he's playing on piano, naturally there's a lot of slash chords. So a slash chord is like like instead of just being F to C, it's F to C over E. And just like a little bit easier to do on piano. D minor, and then instead of just doing C, it's like D minor over C. So it's like you know I mean it's more like slashy, man. It's a slash chord, D minor over C. And then D flat. Right? That's B flat over C instead of just regular C. But for the purpose of this episode, I'm just gonna keep things simple, okay? I'm gonna go. But look at this, look at all this movement. Now watch this. Now that was that starts off with piano and bass, right? And then when the vocals enter, you get it starts on the minor two chord, okay? So for example, like F is like if you went like Don't Let Me Down, you go, Don't let me down. That would be the minor two chord.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Don't let me down. It goes back to F.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Don't let me nice like minor tension, right? Don't let me down. So Yellowbrick Road, goodbye Yellow Brick Road has this like beautiful book opening of a song, right? And like I love how it starts on F and it ends on F. Just like the song starts in F and the song ends in F. And the whole thing is like a journey. It's like going back to your roots. You know, he starts in F and then he like ends in F, like a new self, right? And then and then right away the two, the tension, the two. When are you gonna come down? It's such a story already. When are you going to live? So beautiful. And then we got this E flat right here. Oh! Like this is everything so far has been in the key of F, and this E flat is different here. It perks your ears up. I should have stayed in the farm. Now you could look at this as a borrowed chord from F minor, which there's a whole lot of that in this song, okay? Or you could look at it as like a Mixolydian move, because we're doing the flat seven. Right? E flat. Mixolydian is like a type of major scale, and if you take F you go. So you take that do, re mifa, sola, T, if you flatten that to one note down, you get. And that's what he's doing. He's making the major chord out of E flat. I should have s I should have stayed on the farm. There's that five chord C leading perfectly back to F. I should have listened to my old man, right? And then he goes back. Now the whole the the progression repeats. G minor. You know you can't hold me forever. And he's doubled. It's like very subtle, but it like there's something so magical with like the reverb and the and the piano. It's like really, really a nice arrangement and mix, and his voice is just perfect, right? Not a present just like props you up. Not a present for your friends to open. This boy's too young. Back to F. Back home. This boy's too young to be singing. The and then right here, oh my god, the So this right here, that chord, that is now the flat six. But I think he's actually treating it as like a modulate. It feels like a modulation to F minor or A flat major, which is just the relative major of F minor. Same notes, right? So instead of F major, right? We not a present for your friends to open. This boy's too young, this boy's too young to be sane. F major. And then we do this move with the flat six. Woo! And then we go So that A flat right there, that is what I'm seeing as like like the new key. The key of this um the key of this section. Okay, A flat major or F minor. The same like essentially the same thing, okay? Like he doesn't actually play F minor, but he plays a relative major. Ah back to the D flat, okay? And then B flat mi uh B flat minor. Beautiful. The five chord, but it's like a dominant chord, bluesy. Ah, so goodbye. Oh, now we're like, this is the chorus. So I guess the ah you could look at that as like a crazy big pre-chorus. It's just like a blast of light, isn't it? Like so goodbye, yellow. No, this is F major. Okay, this is the chorus.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Goodbye, yellow brick road.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That chord is awesome. We haven't seen that chord yet. That's A7, okay? So if you want to stay true to F major, you play A minor. It's the minor three chord, but they make it A dominant seven, okay? So it has an A, it's like A major essentially, but with a flat seven. And um that's called a like a chromatic dominant chord. It creates a lot of tension, right? It creates a lot of tension. It happens a lot in like jazz and film score, gospel, blues music, as it lands on the four chord, right? Because you want uh goodbye, El Brick Road. Right, right here. We want it to land. There's so much tension we want. Oh, so nice. We're the dogs of society. Like those first four chords of this chorus really tell a story. I mean, just listen to the chords. Isn't that nice? It's like sandwiched by F. So F to A7 to the four chord B flat, and then back to F. The f the verse is in F major, and the pre-chorus the A, that's in like F minor slash A flat major, and then it goes back to F. Goodbye, Yellowbrick Road, where the dogs of society howl. And like Bernie Taupin's lyrics, man. Good so goodbye, Yellowbrick Road, where the dogs of society howl. And then right here, you can't plan me in your penthouse like that. The D7 is awesome. It's a secondary dominant, it's the five of two. So remember, five the two is the G minor. When are you gonna? That's G minor, and then the five of G minor is D. And then so when you do the secondary dominant, it's the five of two here, and it creates tension, man. You wanna land on the G minor, which it does, okay? With the Dog Society. How like you can't play me in your it lands right there on the G minor. And then look at this, the five chord. I'm going back to my plow. Like the chords literally go back home.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I'm going back to my plow.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

But I just want to say that when he goes, you can't plan me in your like So he's singing a note that's in the chord, which is It's the fifth, right? He's singing an A. So for a second, like in that one millisecond, he goes. Oh my god, so much tension. You can't plant me in your p in your penthouse. You can't plant me in your penthouse.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

I'm going back to my plow.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Okay, now uh finally a very like simple change. We go to D minor, which is the relative minor of F major. Here's F major. There's D minor. Okay, just three half steps down to you get to the relative minor of any major key, okay. F major. Uh I'm go I'm going back to my plow. I'm going home to F major, and then we step down to the relative minor. Back to the howling hold owl in the woods. I can't get enough of that. Like that is. Oh my. Like he's literally just like he's going down like the minor triad. Like the minor chord. I love that landing on that E.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Back to the howling hold owl.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Oh god, I can't. That's like my favorite melody out of all the melodies in this beautiful song. That moment is insane. Back to the it's like like it just like sounds like what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Back to the howling hold. Howl in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

And then to the four chord, hunting the horny back toe. There's that there's that flat six, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Same chord as the right back to hunting the horny back toad.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And the way he says hunting the horny back toe, like, oh he goes, back to the howling old owl in the wood.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

He goes, hunting the horny back toe.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Ever like the expression it the expressions with Ellen John. Hunting the horny back toe. And I love this. Oh I right? Oh I finally like the flat six to the flat seven. They're also like minor borrowed uh borrowed chords from F minor, right? It's like hard to tell. It's just like you could be you could look at it as like F F major with the flat six and the flat seven, or like we're borrowing from F minor temporarily, right? It's kinda like kind of like the same thing. Oh I f and then this right here, right when it says finally, this is the intro of the song. Oh I my future lies, right? Beyond the LO. He like sneaks the intro chords there. It's so beautiful. But then he goes back to that pre-chorus, or like the big, you know, the big like blast of light. It's like this this song is like so sophisticated. It's so great. Here we go. Uh oh I've intro. Finally decided my future lives beyond the yellow brick. And I just love the placement of this, right? We just had the it was like it was like verse pre chorus, chorus, pre-chorus. It feels weird to call it a pre-chorus because it's like it's like way more than that. It's like way more special than that. You could call it verse special section, chorus, special, special section, and then verse. Verse, and then I think it goes, and then back to the special section, and then chorus, and then special section. It's crazy. Oh, I finally decided my future lives!

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Beyond the yellow brick blow wall of harmonies, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Right. Five chord, five chord, five chord, five chord leads back to F. And then but it goes right. Second verse, I love the lyrics. What do you think you'll do then? I bet they'll shoot down the plane. I bet they'll shoot down the plane. What do you think you'll do then? I bet they're gonna shoot down like those plans, you know. You know, shoot down your plane. I bet they'll shoot down the plane. There is that flat seven right here. It'll take you a couple vodka KP take it'll it'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics. He says like vodka, it sounds like it says it'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics to set you on your feet again.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And there's a set you on your feet again!

SPEAKER_00 12:55

There's like a nice harmony there to set you on your feet again. And then maybe you'll get a replacement! The verse chords are beautiful. There's plenty like me to be found. There's like its own story going on. There's that flat seven again. Sniffin' for bits like you on the ground. It's so big, man. It's to me it's always been real uh Beatles-esque. And then I'll go back to the chorus. So goodbye, Yellow Brig, Broad. Perfect lyrics. Like, I can't imagine like, you know, Bernie would like fax the lyrics over to Elton John, right? And imagine just like looking at this, and Ellen's just like, what am I gonna do here? You know? It's so wondrous. It's such a journey. So goodbye, yellow brig. Chromatic dominant road. We're the dogs of society howl. Where the dogs of society howl.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

You can't play at me in your penthouse. I'm going back to my plow. Back to the howling old owl in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Hunt the honey back to like everywhere we land, it's always landing. Okay, everything's landing. Look. Tension. Uh release.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Tension!

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Oh okay. We wanna lead back to uh tension. It's like inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, right? Back to the howling. Oh, we're we're like adventuring here. Uh-oh, unease, t unease relief. Uneasy relief, uneasy landing. Oh, I finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brighter and the song ends like a book. Like insane. Oh my god. Yeah, god, like I can't get enough of this song. I've always loved it. It's like, you know, top three Elton John songs for me. It might be my favorite. Sometimes it's it it is my favorite. Um, but he's really is such a genius. Beautiful, beautiful work. And I'm not even playing it exactly how he's playing it because he's you know, it's on piano. But it's really nice like clean electric guitar embellishments. Um really nice song. Thanks so much for listening, guys. Stay tuned for the next episode. And if you want to take your ear training seriously, I recommend you check out my course, Unlock Your Musician's Ear. It's at learn.dambarakuda.com slash unlock and it divides music up into three sections the tune, the time, and texture. I guide you through learning the intervals and establishing an emotional connection to each one with a lot of real-world examples and pop and rock music. In the time module, we dive into the time signatures and rhythmic subdivisions, song structure, and then finally in texture, we dive into harmony, chords, melodies, scales, chord progressions, sus, sus four chords, and seventh chords. It's a whole thing. And there's tons of rock and pop examples along the way, and we break down a song together at the end. So uh yeah, check that out at learn.damberricuda.comslash unlock, and I'll see you guys in the next episode.