Elton John
Songs From the West Coast

In 2001, Elton John releases this "Songs From the West Coast", a mature album, very beautiful, for which he decided to set aside glitter and extravagance and focus solely on the music and lyrics, all of excellent quality; landing on a classic and romantic musical genre, centered on piano and percussion, the latter well matched with the rustle of his voice.

The lyrics, as I mentioned, are very creative, even from the melodic side, which navigates around the vivacity of funk and the heartfelt and sometimes moving piano bar.

"The emperor's new clothes" wonderfully presents the traits of the album, with Elton's sly voice enhanced by the deep and steady intonation, with stressed consonances and melodic exploits where words are softened, and in this, he is the best.

The sense of the lyrics here, as elsewhere, is self-celebratory. Precisely for this reason, songs like "American triangle", "Original sin" and "Mansfield" gain a velvety prominence, dealing with entirely different themes. But I don't want to forget "Dark diamond" to complete the list, which has very fine piano chords.

Among these, perhaps the most beautiful is "American Triangle" where the wandering intonation expresses with beautiful metaphors a clumsy inadequacy and sensitivity, the latter candidly linked to the singer's homosexuality. To quote: "See two coyotes running down a deer, hate what we don't understand, you pioneers, give us your children, but it's your blood, that stains their hands. Western skies, don't make it right, home of the brave don't make no sense..".

"Original sin", besides being equally beautiful, talks about love, in the romantic manner of someone yearning for women out of reach.

Then follows "Mansfield", always impassioned and with a metric enriched by uncertain lyrics expressing a relationship that suddenly blossoms between long-time friends, set against the backdrop of sensations from the city.

Of Elton John, what should be most appreciated besides his sensitivity is his restless intonation and literal creativity.