Songs For Saturday #5: Boston and Elton John

Hi there! Welcome to another installment for Songs For Saturday where I post links to songs that I really like.

Today, I have some really good music on tap but I have to warn you, it's a bit of a endurance test. 

Today's Songs For Saturday will only include two songs but they combine for 18 minutes of music. Both are extended tracks from two of greatest rock and roll albums of the 1970s. 

Which was the last decade music was any damn good, a lot of old farts will tell you. 

 So slap on the ol Bat-Head Phones. 

Then crank up the volume!

And get ready to ROCK!




First up is Boston!

Boston’s self titled debut album was standard issue for rock and roll fans in the 1970s.  Seriously, I think Congress passed a law for everyone to own this album.

This is a really good album with not a single track a dud. But “Foreplay/Long Time” seriously kicks out all the jams. 

"Foreplay" is a progressive instrumental prelude with Boston founder Tom Scholz tearing through a Hammond M-3 organ like a buzzsaw with a pounding bass line like a velvet jackhammer. Then “Foreplay” crashes into “Long Time”, an epic anthem that answers the challenge of the prelude. 

 OK, enough talk. Listen to the damn thing!

Wow! “Foreplay/Long Time” remains one of my all-time favorite extended tracks ever!

Rolling Stone described "Foreplay/Long Time" as "a perfect marriage of Led Zeppelin and Yes that plays musical chairs with electric and acoustic sounds.”

My review is simply, “IT ROCKS!”

Let’s move on to the other song for today’s post which is also another one of my all-time favorite extended tracks ever! And it’s from another classic rock album of the 1970s! 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John was another one of those albums that is solid throughout. There’s not one dud of a song on this record which is pretty impressive giving that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a double album.  And it gets off to an astonishing start with a seriously epic double whammy with “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding". 

Enough babbling. This thing’s 11 minutes long so let’s get cracking. 

What did I tell you? Seriously epic! 

Elton John has said that “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" was not written to be a single piece of music but they fit together with “Funeral for a Friend” ending and “Love Lies Bleeding" beginning in the same key of A. And Bernie Taupin’s use of death symbolism in the lyrics of “Love Lies Bleeding" fits in well with the funereal tone of the opening instrumental.  So it's pretty cool how well they link up.   

NOW it's BONUS TRACK TIME!

(This is for extra credit. You can skip this part if you want.) 

“Funeral for a Friend” has an almost sci-fi quality to it, reminiscent of music by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop produced for Doctor Who in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I know I’ve asked a lot what with a nearly 11 minute Elton John song but really, make time to listen to this.

It’s from “The Leisure Hive”, the first episode of Doctor Who’s 18^th season.  A lot of the more grandiose elements in “The Leisure Hive” can be heard in "Funeral for a Friend". I wonder if Doctor Who composer Peter Howell was inspired by Elton John’s instrumental opus?  

That's that for today's edition for Songs For Saturday.  Until next time, remember to be good to one another and keep the music alive.