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THE COOL SONGS IT WAS NEVER COOL TO LIKE

Elton John - Don't go breaking my heart

Elton John, master of cheese, eccentric, wig lover and writer of big funeral hits might not appear as an example of cool.

For a generation who has grown up seeing Elton providing scores for Disney cartoons, like ‘Can you feel the love tonight’ for the Lion King or seeing him at Westminster Abbey playing ‘Candle in the Wind’ at the piano for Lady Di’s funeral, he might not necessarily come across as one of the greatest rock and roll piano icons of all times but rather as a rich eccentric musician who is more in the news for his parties and his outbursts than for his music.

These days, saying that you like Elton John would probably result in crazy looks coming from your friends or you would probably be labelled as a cheesy music lover who went and bought ‘My heart will go on’ by Celine Dion. The younger the generations, the less are the probabilities that they will remember that Elton John is also the writer of brilliant gems, such as ‘Your Song’, ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’.

As for other music icons like the Rolling Stones, his music of the last ten years does not match the high standards of creativity that characterised his 1970s and 1980s hits. ‘Can you feel the love tonight’ and ‘Sacrifice’ might be more sophisticated in terms of strings arrangements and lyrics, but it is the spontaneity in the lyrics and the stripped down sound of ‘Your Song’ that make it a masterpiece. A re-release of ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’ with a new dance treatment featured a new duet with Elton and the transsexual Ru Paul. The 1990s version of the song is a far shoddier affair, not just in sound but also in its video; it comes across as a mock of the original song, which should be celebrated rather than ridiculed.

The cheeky pop rhythms and the lyrics of the original 1970s battle of the sexes has Kiki Dee as the female counterpart proving to Elton that she gave him her heart and asking not to have her heart broken. Both Kiki and Elton manage to put into music the kind of conversations - or better, arguments - that couples have when relationships are in turmoil. When Elton sings “…when I was down”, she promptly replies “…I was your clown”. Whenever Elton sings ‘…Don’t go breaking my heart’, Kiki assures him ‘I couldn’t if I tried’. Whenever this song might suggest sadness for the nature of the lyrics and of its title – ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’ – the cheeky, happy pop melodies make this song a more light and cheerful affair, which could be interpreted as the music version of the Shakespearean merry quarrels between Benedict and Beatrix in ‘Much Ado about Nothing’. The light tune tells you ‘Yes, these people are having an argument, but it’s gonna be alright because they love each other’, making the song a celebration of love rather than a sad account of the breakdown of a relationship. In the same way as for the Smiths’ ‘Girlfriend in a coma’, the contrast between negative lyrics and cheerful melody results in an attractive force which increases the interest in the song.
Whether Elton John had Shakespeare in mind when he wrote this song, it is not known.

However, this musical tale of pains of the heart and of promises of love stands high in people’s affections…certainly a case of much ado about something.

Lis