The Scaffold

No, this one's not about the late 60's- early 70's British music/comedy group that counted Mike (McCartney) McGear in its ranks...at least, I don't think it is. "The Scaffold" boasts what seem to be some of Bernie's most opaque lyrics. Basically a collection of reflective-sounding quasi-Oriental proverbs, with words arranged into convoluted sentences like

In Orient is as I told
The buckshee hangman swears
For open crypts to silence
Nylon knots to sway by prayer

No doubt another example of the "Very ethereal, very steeped in mythology, very naive childish sorts of things we were writing at the time", as Bernie puts it in the Rare Masters booklet notes.

Musically, it's given a prim, gently swinging kind of arrangement with a pleasant melody, electric piano and smooth guitar predominant and Elton crooning the words like they are nuggets of Confucian wisdom.

It's a good track, just don't scrutinize the words too hard.