Sick City

This, the B-side to 1974's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", finds Bernie taking the opportunity to get in some digs at New York City, or to be specific the groupies and panhandlers that they encountered. It's textbook not-nice Taupin, but I would imagine that he (and Elton) certainly encountered a lot of unsavory characters back then, and can't be blamed for being less than magnanimous.

Musically, it's a swaggering mid-tempo rocker that chugs along nicely, augmented by the Tower of Power horns. The melody isn't especially strong or memorable, and combined with the acidic lyric content is probably the reason why it was relegated to B-side status.

Lyrics and a sample