I’m new here. I came across the original “Alvin Tostig” question recently during my 30-year quest to solve this great enigma of Western civilization.
I have found no one else on the web who mentions my thoughts on the chorus “And he shall be Levon.” For years I have interpreted this as “And he shall believe on…”, and I suspected, with the reference to his son Jesus, that the song was religious, or more likely, anti-religious. But who is Alvin Tostig, other than Jesus’ grandfather? I assumed that the name was an anagram, but could not decipher it. Until yesterday.
I realized that in the name were the letters “tion,” a nice word ending. Looking at the remaining letters, I found that if I ignored the final “tig,” I was left with “salv_tion,” which is easily recognizable as “salvation,” a nice religious reference. The final three letters could be there for any number of reasons: (a) Maybe the anagram is “Git Salv_tion,” or “Get Salvation.” (b) Perhaps Mr. Taupin tried “Alvin Tosa” and found “Tosa” to be obscene in some language. (c) Perhaps he used the Earl of Wessex’s name so the anagram would not be so obvious.
From what I’ve seen about Mr. Taupin’s claim that the title is based on Levon Helm’s name, I will assume that this is true, and he simply recognized an opportunity to create a play on words.
With this in mind, I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on the song meaning. I will guess that Levon and his parents were religious types (“in tradition with the family plan”), so much that he would name his kid “Jesus.” Little Jesus becomes alienated from religion, and wants to “take a balloon and go sailing,” “leav[ing] Levon far behind.”
Thanks for the help folks. I was searching for a button to generate the original URL, but there was none. Now I know how to do it.
Back to the topic at hand: I feel like Bernie Taupin can’t believe it’s taken someone this long to figure out Alvin Tostig. Elton released his song “Salvation” on the very next album, Honky Chateau.
Well… I can’t help but feel that there’s a lot of stretch in your explanation. It’s “almost” an anagram, aside from the missing “a” and the extra “tig”? If you want to play that game, it’s also an anagram for “Lost vanity” except for the y is an i and there’s an extra g. Or “tasting love” except for an i instead of the e in love. Or… I mean, as soon as you start a game like “almost an anagram”, you’ve got countless possibilities.
And I just realized that this is a Staff Report, not a column by Cecil, so I’m moving it to the appropriate forum. My apologies, I shoulda noticed sooner.
“Bernie Taupin” rearranges to “A Pie Be In Turn,” which, in addition to being a response to “When Come Back, Bring Pie” (albeit thirty years early) also becomes “Alvin Tostig” when you throw out most of the original letters and add “A-l-v-i-n- T-o-s-t-i-g.”
