Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

This song describes quite well how I'm feeling just now, having today resigned from UniQ and resolved to leave Palmerston North and go back to work. It's about turning my back on being cosmopolitan and fake, and returning to the familiar, the isolated and the genuine. A lot of the bitterness, reflected in references to 'Society Dogs' and being set on your feet again by just another couple of drinks, is directed toward Seth, who I feel at this point cares about nobody but himself and his own interests, least of all my feelings.

The Yellow Brick Road, I feel, is quite apt, too.... too long have I chased after dreams, thinking that happiness lay 'out there' somewhere. There is also, implicit in this song for me at least, a rejection of the Gay Community. I have found it to be shallow, superficial and judgemental - serving only it's own interests, readily abandoning those who cannot so easily conform to 'normalness'.

So then, here, in all their bitter splendour, are the lyrics to Elton John's 'Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road':



When are you gonna come down,
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm -
I should have listened to my old man!

You know you can't hold me forever -
I didn't sign up with you.
I'm not a present for your friends to open,
This boy's too young to be singing
The blues.

So goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,
Where the dogs of society howl -
You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough!
Back to the howling old owl
Hunting the horny back toad...
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road!

What do you think you'll do then?
I bet that'll shoot down your plane.
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again!

Maybe you'll get a replacement,
There's plenty like me to be found -
Mongrels who ain't got a penny,
Sniffing for tidbits like you on
The ground.

So goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,
Where the dogs of society howl -
You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough!
Back to the howling old owl
Hunting the horny back toad...
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road!

by Bernie Taupin, Elton John



Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, assholes!!