How Elton John’s Masterpiece Arrived in a Flurry of Inspiration

It almost seems too easy to call Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Elton John’s masterpiece, but it’s hard to deny.

Just as amazing is how prolific he was at the time. Released on Oct. 5, 1973, this album was the second studio project John released that year, and his seventh in five years. Oh, and it was a double album.

That’s a staggering tally for even the busiest artists from a time when the insatiable nature of the pop charts demanded constant product. Such was the era, but such was his talent. It may be a run of success, quality and humility unprecedented in rock history. John had six No. 1 singles on the Billboard chart in the ’70s, second only to the Bee Gees.

READ MORE: Elton John’s 10 Most Legendary Concerts

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road didn’t have enough time to beat out 1973’s top-selling album, War’s The World Is a Ghetto, but it outsold all other records the following year. John has described the era as a time “before the drugs set in,” though his terrifying overdose in Los Angeles wouldn’t come until 1975. At this moment, there was only the music, the studio and the road.

Listen to Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’

Creating the Quintessential Elton John LP

John writes the music for most songs in 20 minutes or less – “in the time it would take me to make a sandwich,” as longtime guitarist Davey Johnstone would later remark. In keeping, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was completed over just two weeks in France, after an aborted attempt to record in Jamaica. (This was the source for Bernie Taupin’s lyric on “Jamaica Jerk Off.”)

The band would wake up in the morning for breakfast, John would retire to the piano to write, they’d learn the day’s song, and it usually took no more than four takes to cut each track. Of course, that doesn’t count overdubs and additional instruments – and there were many.

READ MORE: Elton John Albums Ranked Worst to Best

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is an album full of lush, rich productions, with strings, horns, and sound effects in abundance across its 17 tracks. Horses gallop on “Roy Rogers,” a chilling wind blows through “Funeral for a Friend,” and a piped-in crowd claps the off-beat on “Bennie and the Jets.”

Watch Elton John’s ‘Bennie and the Jets’ Video

Pop, rock, country, reggae, soul and R&B melt together into a gorgeous, rocking mosaic. Every song stands as its own tone poem, as Taupin’s lyrics conjure images of a wistful, sometimes painful past that you can’t really escape – no matter how many yellow brick roads you walk away from.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road finds an artist at the top of his talents, in a moment when the world was at his feet. John’s had countless legendary moments in his career, from winning Oscars for The Lion King to entertaining all of Central Park in a Donald Duck outfit.

Still, there may be no record that captures his gifts more perfectly than Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It’s the quintessential Elton John album.