Yes, it's well established that this is about a fictional glamrock band from the early seventies. The song is good, the "live" sound additives are a nice touch including the loud piano acoustics -- but the song has a terrible weakness, and it's not the meaning of the lyrics -- it's the poor enunciation by Elton John. It's impossible to understand most of the lyrics because Elton's singing is so garbled. The only way to decipher the words is to have the written lyrics in front of you. Most of the time Elton enunciates well enough to get by, but this one is an unintelligible jumble, and even oddly pronounced (e.g. "I read it in a maga-ziii-heeeene!"). Still, Elton is brilliant, and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" a masterpiece record.
Yes, it's well established that this is about a fictional glamrock band from the early seventies. The song is good, the "live" sound additives are a nice touch including the loud piano acoustics -- but the song has a terrible weakness, and it's not the meaning of the lyrics -- it's the poor enunciation by Elton John. It's impossible to understand most of the lyrics because Elton's singing is so garbled. The only way to decipher the words is to have the written lyrics in front of you. Most of the time Elton enunciates well enough to get by, but this one is an unintelligible jumble, and even oddly pronounced (e.g. "I read it in a maga-ziii-heeeene!"). Still, Elton is brilliant, and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" a masterpiece record.