My goal with this week’s Music Friday – Yellow Brick Road Edition was to find an artist who is virtually a household name and perhaps introduce you to a few of his more obscure songs from my formative years, which are?  Anyone?   Bueller?  That’s right, the 70’s!  And by way of maintaining the connection to progressive or alt rock, I can tell you that Elton John, while he was still known by his real name Reginald Dwight, once auditioned for lead singer of King Crimson.  And you can’t get any more prog or alt than King Crimson.  Obviously, he did not pass the audition.  Though he teamed up with lyricist Bernie Taupin in the 60’s and his debut album Empty Sky was released in 1969, it was his 1970 album Elton John that established his style and contained his first US Top 100 single, Your Song.  Anyhoo... back to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  The double album was released in early 1973 to instant critical acclaim, and yielded the hits Bennie and the Jets, Candle In The Wind as well as the title track, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  If you click on those titles, the link will take you to YouTube where you can listen to those songs.  For my purposes today, I will feature three  songs you may not be familiar with if you haven’t listened to the album tens of thousands of times like I have.  You think I’m exaggerating…

First up:  Harmony (not hominy as someone suggested in the YouTube comments)

Next up:  This Song Has No Title.  Actually is does have a title – that is the title.

Finally we’ll ride off into the sunset with Roy Rogers

Elton John and Bernie Taupin collaborated on something like 30 albums, and they did not work together.  Taupin would write a set of lyrics and then send them, usually through the mail, to John wherever he was.  John would then put the lyrics to music.  Well.. whatever works.  And this works!