Ticking

In which a pampered momma's boy goes mental and kills a bunch of people in a Queens bar, and is shot dead by police when he does finally emerge.

Not exactly "Your Song", is it?

It's an atypically long track, for the Caribou album anyway, and instrumentation is only Elton on piano and vocal, along with Dave Hentschel on synths. It's 2:13 longer than the next longest track, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"- and I say that not to appease the number crunchers but to point out how (despite the potential for monotony) engaging the track is, carried by Elton's deft vocal and the band's harmonies. The subject matter is a bit lurid, almost screaming "RIPPED FROM TODAY'S HEADLINES!!!"- perhaps Bernie had read a newspaper account of a similar incident- but we do get our dramatics administered with an even hand, and that helps. We get sympathy for the perp, sympathy for the victims, but maybe not so much for the police, who gun him down even though he gives up.

This track was a bit of a stretch for Elton & Co., I can't recall another instance, until much later with John Lennon's death, when he and Bernie would be this topical again.