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Rating:
It is a sad and undeserved fate that the music market has reserved for "Empty Sky", the debut album of the young Reg Dwight, known as Elton John: it went completely unnoticed and was literally buried by the monumental success of its successors without even receiving a "posthumous" reevaluation, and it is a shame because this is a remarkable album: certainly, perhaps still a bit raw but overall of excellent quality and imbued with a dreamy pop with folk and psychedelic contours, well represented by the light blue shades and tones of the cover, making it unique in the entire EJ discography.
The eight and a half minute title track that opens the album shows us an Elton John decidedly atypical compared to how we are used to knowing him: it is an awkward psychedelic rock enriched by tribal conga rhythms and a driving piano line: it's a somewhat pretentious song, maybe even too much, interesting but never truly engaging, just like the fusion between psychedelic sounds and rhythm & blues in "Sails", fairly clumsy and repetitive, but the flaws stop here: the rest of "Empty Sky" stands at excellent levels, from the relaxed and dreamy "The Scaffold", enriched by Bernie Taupin's evocative lyrics of unknown landscapes to the brilliant pop rock with a vaguely reggae rhythm of "Western Ford Gateways", introduced by a beautiful guitar riff, passing through the sweetness and simplicity of the ballad "Lady What's Tomorrow", reaching the highest points in the poignant lyricism of "Skyline Pigeon" and the soothing dreaminess of "Val-Hala", stunning folk-infused sound watercolors enriched by the enchanting sound of the harpsichord and the masterful vocal performances of an evocative and highly inspired EJ, not to forget a gem like "Hymn 2000", formidable with its driving and hypnotic flute-infused pop-folk that flows into a catchy chorus yet anything but trivial and obvious.
These last three songs alone, in my opinion among the best ever in Elton John's repertoire, would be enough to reevaluate this highly underrated album, which proves to be an excellent debut, where the combination of EJ's music and Bernie Taupin's lyrics immediately reveals its potential, with the only "flaw" of not featuring in the tracklist the likes of "Your Song" or "Crocodile Rock" that would have guaranteed "Empty Sky" the success and recognition it deserves.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Val-Hala (04:10)
Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
The seadogs have all sailed their ships
Into the docks of dawn
While the sirens sit and comb their hair
And twiddle with their thumbs
Oh Thor above the mountain
Look down upon your children
This is their heaven where they're told
To bring their galleons
Seek you find your place with me
Men of iron, men of steel
Only the brave hear the hammers ring
In the courts of the Queens, in the halls of the Kings
You can come to Val-hala in your own time
Come to Val-hala seek and you will find Val-hala
Come to Val-hala in your own time
Come to Val-hala seek and you will find Val-hala
There's long boats in the harbour
Which arrive there every hour
With the souls of the heroes
Whose blood lies on the flowers
And this heaven is the home
Of every man who loves his sword
And he uses it for freedom
To preach the word of Thor
04 Hymn 2000 (04:28)
She chose the soft center
And took it to bed with her mother
And the ideal confusion
Was just an illusion
To gain further news of her brother
And the comfort of mother
Was just an appeal for protection
For the cat from next door
Was found later at four
In surgical dissection
And I don't want to be
The son of any freak
Who for a chocolate center
Can take you off the street
For soon they'll plough the desert
And God knows where I'll be
Collecting submarine numbers
On the main street of the sea
The Vicar is thicker
And I just can't see through to him
For his cardinal sings
A collection of hymns
And a collection of coins is made after
And who wrote the Bible
Was it Judas or Pilate
Well one cleans his hands
While the other one hangs
But still I continue to stand
07 The Scaffold (03:13)
In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live
Come give the beggar chance at hand
His life is on his lip
Three score a thousand times
Where once in Amazon
Where Eldorado holds the key
No keeper holds my hand
Unchain the gate of solitude
The ruler says you run
Run hard unto the scaffold high
Your chance to jump the gun
Oh how high the scaffold grows
The plant life of your widow
In black lace curtains brought you near
From out the plate glass window
The Minotaur with bloody hands
Is enraged by the sun
Caged he by the corpses
Brought forth by the dawn
In Orient is as I told
The buckshee hangman swears
For open crypts to silence
Nylon knots to sway by prayer
In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live
Come give the beggar chance at hand
His life is on his lip
08 Skyline Pigeon (03:33)
Turn me loose from your hands
Let me fly to distant lands
Over green fields, trees and mountains
Flowers and forest fountains
Home along the lanes of the skyway
For this dark and lonely room
Projects a shadow cast in gloom
And my eyes are mirrors
Of the world outside
Thinking of the way
That the wind can turn the tide
And these shadows turn
From purple into grey
For just a Skyline Pigeon
Dreaming of the open
Waiting for the day
He can spread his wings
And fly away again
Fly away skyline pigeon fly
Towards the dreams
You've left so very far behind
Just let me wake up in the morning
To the smell of new mown hay
To laugh and cry, to live and die
In the brightness of my day
I want to hear the pealing bells
Of distant churches sing
But most of all please free me
From this aching metal ring
And open out this cage towards the sun
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