i just know it's really weird.
2006-07-16 07:18:09 · 5 answers · asked by frances.bacon&eggs 3 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Music
The song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" is about an episode in Elton's life. In the late sixties, he almost got married to a woman who didn't even like his music and what he was doing. He wanted to get out of that situation, but was too confused, and also didn't want to face her. So one night he got drunk, then left his friends at the bar and went home. When Bernie got back, he found Elton lying on the kitchen floor, his head on a pillow for comfort, the oven open letting gas fill the room. But there was also a window open. So Bernie started to laugh. :-)
This suicide attempt was in fact a cry for help.
The line "Paying your H.P. demands forever" refers to installment payments. I've been told that the letters H.P. stand for Hire-Purchase or Hire-Pay. It means that he would have had to pay for her expenses all of their married life. He saw this marriage as a neverending chore. In the lines "You almost had me roped and tied, altar-bound, hypnothized", he speaks to her, saying, wow, I almost got caught in your web!
It's Bernie who wrote the words, so he had kind of an outsider view of this relationship. He thought she was a Prima Donna, and that Elton was "just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen". So anyway, after having been "saved" by Bernie, and also by Long John Baldry, the blues singer whom the band Bluesology was backing at the time, who talked Elton into getting out of this relationship, his friends came in the morning with a truck to take Elton home. Those lyrics are really great. They tell the story in a very poetic way, in my opinion. In 1974, when Elton recorded the song, it had been a couple of years since it happened. But Elton was still shaken by this experience and he was very emotional in the studio. The producer made him redo the vocals time and time again until they were just the way he wanted them, and Elton found that to be very painful.
2006-07-16 07:22:29 · answer #1 · answered by CG234 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
CG234 is absolutely correct. Elton has often discussed the story behind the song.
He had only recently left his family home, and was living with the woman in the song at her appartment in Islington, London. The suicide attempt took place at her place.
2006-07-16 14:36:19 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
i think he almost got married and someone talked him out of it.
2006-07-16 14:21:16 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
man read the title...
2006-07-16 14:24:42 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
something gay
2006-07-16 14:24:38 · answer #5 · answered by chris l 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋