In 1976, the year I turned 12, my mom took me to see Elton John at the Pontiac Silverdome, the massive stadium built for the Detroit Lions football team out on the edge of the city, in Auburn Hills.
We had main-floor, general-admission tickets, and either because my mom was really into Elton John herself or because she wanted me to have a great first concert experience, we arrived early so we could get close to the stage. The floor was jammed with people, all standing. There was a weird sweet smoke in the air and once the show started, women perched on the shoulders of guys pulled up their tops and flashed their boobs. My god, I was 12, and I was smelling my first weed, seeing my first real female breasts.
But the most memorable thing was Elton John bursting onto the stage, dressed in a flowing silver gown with 18-inch-high silver boots and a flaming silver torch in his hand. He was the Statue of Liberty, and he launched into “Philadelphia Freedom,” a fitting opener.1
1976 was Elton’s year: he had released 10 albums in the previous 7 years, each of them soaring to #1 on the charts. He spent that summer touring the world to sold-out audiences. What I didn’t know then was that Elton was near burnout, worn down by the pace of touring and by the constant flow of drugs and alcohol in his life. At the end of that summer’s tour, Elton told Rolling Stone that he was done touring and revealed that he was bisexual (a much bigger revelation in those days than today).
His writing partner, Bernie Taupin, was also at the end of his rope. Though Bernie largely avoided the excesses of the rock star life, he was suffering through the collapse of his marriage.
But even in the midst of this chaotic, difficult year, these two long-term friends and writing partners came together to write and record the album Blue Moves, which they released in the fall of 1976. Out of the struggles with their own pain, they came together to create one of the most beautiful songs in their voluminous catalog: “Tonight.”
Of course my parents bought the new album: Elton John was huge in 1976, both globally and in my family. We’d been listening to his music for years. So it was only natural that this song played on the stereo that sat beside the big rock fireplace my parents had built in our family room. I can still hear it playing, while the wood crackles in the fireplace and my mom makes dinner in the kitchen.
Tonight
Do we have to fight again
Tonight
I just want to go to sleep
Turn out the light
But you want to carry grudges
Nine times out of ten
I see the storm approaching
Long before the rain starts falling
Did I understand when I heard this song that my parents’ marriage would end? Did I hear in it a forewarning of the years of bitterness and low-grade sniping that would become increasingly apparent to me as I grew older? This song seemed to describe more of the emotional reality of their struggle than any of the actual incidents that lay scattered across my childhood—the stuffed snowmobile suit, the burlap bag of cats, the cruel words. More than the slow-motion train wreck that played out over 20 years, it’s this song that made sense of it all for me.
Here’s the full song; there’s a long instrumental intro, then the words.
What must it have felt like for my parents to hear these words, this song? Did they hear in it a premonition of collapse? Did they wince and wonder if their boys understood what the song was telling them? The song played enough in our house that I know most of the words to this day, but we didn’t talk about it. But hell, who talks lyrics with their parents?
Their actual divorce came 15 years later, after my brother and I had both finished college and found spouses ourselves. My mom held fast to her vow that she would hold this family together until her boys made a family of their own. The divorce came shortly after my brother’s wedding. Dad never believed the marriage would fail: he was oblivious to the warning signs. That was my dad: steadfastly unwilling to see the writing on the wall right to the end, of his marriage and his life.
Driving out on Whidbey Island with my mom the other day, I put the song “Tonight” on the car stereo. She recognized it, of course. I asked her what it meant to her. “That was a sad time,” she said and turned away, stone-faced.
Background (in no particular order):
“Blue Moves,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moves
Cliff Jahr, “Elton John Comes Out as Bisexual in Rolling Stone’s 1976 Cover Story,” https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/elton-john-lonely-at-the-top-rolling-stones-1976-cover-story-238734/
“Blue Moves,” http://albumlinernotes.com/Blue_Moves.html
Paul Sexton, “Blue Moves: ‘One Of Our Most Underrated Records,’ Says Elton John,” https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/elton-john-blue-moves-album/
Jason Spraggins, “Music Review: Elton John - Blue Moves,” https://blogcritics.org/music-review-elton-john-blue-moves2/
Emilio Perez Miguel, “Blue Moves (Elton John)—Album Review (Part 1),” http://www.musicko.com/elton-john/blue-moves-elton-john-%E2%80%93-album-review
Rocketman (movie), Paramount, 2019.
I can’t corroborate that this outfit or this set list matches to my attendance at the concert on July 11, 1976, but this is how I remember it!
A hell of a memory and first concert...!
I remember sitting in the backseat of the family car, driving to a basketball tournament several hours away. Not knowing the name yet for the anger and tension in the car - my folks’ marriage that would come to a head within a year - but instead focusing on the Elton John my mom played in the car. Speaking gospel on a Sunday morning, Tom.
Gosh, a tough topic beautifully explored, Tom. And YESSSSSSSSSSS: Elton John! 🕺