Song of the Day--"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" by Elton John

"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" by Elton John was recorded in January 1972 and appeared on the album Honky Chateau. This YouTube video features the original song, with images of people, places and street art of New York City from the 1970s to the present. It is a fitting and beautiful enhancement to this incredible song, Elton John's very best, in my opinion.

According to Wikipedia, the lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin during his first visit to New York City when he heard a gun go off near his hotel window. link 

I find the lyrics far less cryptic than  most of Bernie Taupin's songs. Although his description of New Yorkers as "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" is odd, it somehow works with Elton John's exquisite melody to express emotions far deeper than words. 

My interpretation of the song is that although it initially paints a less than flattering picture of New York City, which was infamously crime-ridden in the 1970s, it is ultimately hopeful and positive. The song's protagonist discovers the reality "that rose trees never grow in New York City", and describes what he has experienced there as "this trash can dream come true. You stand at the edge while people run you through." But he is also grateful for the good people he has met: "I thank the Lord there's people out there like you."

Although the "subway's no way for a good man to go down", he admits that "This Broadway's got...a lot of songs to sing. If I knew the tunes I might join in." And although he feels like an outsider, "I'll go my way alone", he embraces the city and his future there when he says "My own seeds shall be sown in New York City," and reiterates "I thank the Lord for the people I have found."
 

Photo by Robert Pastryk (link)

According to Wikipedia link  Elton John has described the song as one of his all-time favorites. He delivered a heartfelt rendition at "The Concert for New York City", held at Madison Square Garden just one month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He dedicated the song to emergency workers and their families, as well as to New York City.

To me, this song is a lifelong friend and is cozy music at its best. It never gets old or worn out; it's like cuddling up in a warm, favorite blanket with a cup of tea. It fills me always with a sweet sense of love and hope and longing and gratitude. It always makes me feel a little bit more alive, and thankful for the gifts I've been given and especially for "the people I have found."

 

Photo by Foster & Asher (link)

A Warm Place

Photo Courtesy of splitshire.com

An evening of sweet contentment at the end of a busy week...a golden place outside of time where worries and concerns melt away, and friends are truly happy in each others company. Sometimes we try too hard to create these special moments. The magical times in life that we always remember often come when we least expect them. The following passage is a remembrance of a warm, happy get together with a group of seemingly random friends almost 100 years ago, on a rainy night in California....

Roses and Rain

     Last night we sat in the quiet room--a few friends together--and heard the wind rattling the palm leaves outside in the garden, like some ghostly senorita clicking a pair of invisible castanets in tune to some haunting rhythm.

     The fire burned on the hearth, a fire of eucalyptus logs, with now and then a branch of aromatic leaves, flaming suddenly into leaping life and filling the room with their pungent and somehow exotic perfume.

     We put out the bright lights from the center of the room, and let the shadows fall from the little gleaming lamps that are like fire-flies, flitting in the dusk like so many swiftly passing thoughts and pleasant memories.

     There we were, the young couple so dead in love with each other, and so full of the joy of living. Sweet Sixteen, a little terrified at her vague glimpse of life—Twenty-one, virile and modest and somehow eagerly hopeful.

     The Home Woman, the Woman of the World, the Artist, the Genius, the Singer and the Priest. A strange company, strangely mixed, and yet there we sat in the quiet little room—together, like passengers on a raft picked up from the wild sea and held together by some strange accident of fate.

     We talked, not of politics, not of war or of diplomacy—not even of the high cost of living, or of the effect of the vote upon women.

     We talked of books and poetry, and of music, and one told a quaint little story of a wounded pigeon, and the rescue of it, and the fire burned and the wind sang, and gradually the stress of the world and the anxiety and restless, uneasy ambition of it fell from us like an outworn cloak. And there we were, like little children, talking together in the twilight of some great primeval forest.

     And one sang—a simple song of love and memory and tears.

     “Roses and rain” and the Artist smiled, and the Woman of the World sighed, and there were tears in the eyes of the Home Woman.

     The Genius it was who sang—and the Singer sat by the fire and listened.

     The Young Wife’s hand stole to the hand of her Husband, and the Priest sat like one in a deep reverie. Was he thinking of the roses that bloomed in the dooryard of his home across the sea, and the fragrance of them in the sweet June rain?

     And we didn’t care who was elected or who was defeated, and somewhere, far down in the city below, the (news) boys were calling “extra, extra, extra!”—all about something or other very important, which concerned us not in the very least.

     And the Singer was generous, and poured out for us like a libation on the altar of friendship his voice of molten silver—French songs he sang full of the quick and glancing grace of a fountain leaping in the moonlight. German lieder, simple and brooding, like the lullabies a mother sings to her child. Italian, too, he sang, and the room glowed with the fire and the passion of the melting music of Italy.

     “Eileen Allana”—how he sang it—the simple old ballad, and how we drank every lilting note of it, like thirsty travelers in a dry and arid desert.

     And so the quiet evening spent itself, and at the end she sang again, the woman with the strange dark eyes—“Roses and Rain”—and we were one with the sunshine and the dew and knew again the sweet and rapturous pang of youth and moonlight and the mystery of the stars.

     “Roses and Rain”—the wind in the palm trees, the fire on the hearth, dear faces in the soft dimness of the quiet room. What is there sweeter, what more beautiful, what more to be gained in life than these?

 --from Roses and Rain by Annie Laurie (1920)

Illustration from Godey's Lady's Magazine, January 1880