It's pretty apparent, when taken on whole. "Bird" is the UK slang for a young woman, so Elton's "high flying bird" was a friend or lover of the song's narrator who probably was into drugs (You never closed your eyes at night and learned to love daylight). "Flew," "raven," "flown from out my arms" make it pretty clear.
The chorus reinforces the song's narrator that as much as he wanted her, she always flew away "She thought I was the archer."
The second verse is about her suicide, most likely due to drugs/alcohol. . "The white walls of your dressing room are stained in scarlet red/You bled upon the cold stone like a young man" And after the narrator internalizes what has happened, he muses "Wouldn't it be wonderful is all I had to say."
@dtyler99 Actually the line is "oh wouldn't it be wonderful is all I heard you say" so that part is still kind of ambiguous; it's likely a nod to something that isn't otherwise implicit in the lyrics (some of Taupin's songs are notorious for that; the line "Paying your H.P. demands forever" from 'Someone saved my Life Tonight' doesn't actually mean anything as per Taupin himself - he made it up/added it because he liked how it sounded, but the average person listening to the song has probably come up with more than a few imagined explanations of what 'H.P.'...
@dtyler99 Actually the line is "oh wouldn't it be wonderful is all I heard you say" so that part is still kind of ambiguous; it's likely a nod to something that isn't otherwise implicit in the lyrics (some of Taupin's songs are notorious for that; the line "Paying your H.P. demands forever" from 'Someone saved my Life Tonight' doesn't actually mean anything as per Taupin himself - he made it up/added it because he liked how it sounded, but the average person listening to the song has probably come up with more than a few imagined explanations of what 'H.P.' stood for.
It's pretty apparent, when taken on whole. "Bird" is the UK slang for a young woman, so Elton's "high flying bird" was a friend or lover of the song's narrator who probably was into drugs (You never closed your eyes at night and learned to love daylight). "Flew," "raven," "flown from out my arms" make it pretty clear.
The chorus reinforces the song's narrator that as much as he wanted her, she always flew away "She thought I was the archer."
The second verse is about her suicide, most likely due to drugs/alcohol. . "The white walls of your dressing room are stained in scarlet red/You bled upon the cold stone like a young man" And after the narrator internalizes what has happened, he muses "Wouldn't it be wonderful is all I had to say."
Taupin's lyrics are pretty easy to decipher.
@dtyler99 Actually the line is "oh wouldn't it be wonderful is all I heard you say" so that part is still kind of ambiguous; it's likely a nod to something that isn't otherwise implicit in the lyrics (some of Taupin's songs are notorious for that; the line "Paying your H.P. demands forever" from 'Someone saved my Life Tonight' doesn't actually mean anything as per Taupin himself - he made it up/added it because he liked how it sounded, but the average person listening to the song has probably come up with more than a few imagined explanations of what 'H.P.'...
@dtyler99 Actually the line is "oh wouldn't it be wonderful is all I heard you say" so that part is still kind of ambiguous; it's likely a nod to something that isn't otherwise implicit in the lyrics (some of Taupin's songs are notorious for that; the line "Paying your H.P. demands forever" from 'Someone saved my Life Tonight' doesn't actually mean anything as per Taupin himself - he made it up/added it because he liked how it sounded, but the average person listening to the song has probably come up with more than a few imagined explanations of what 'H.P.' stood for.