Tostig, the Earl of Wessex, was the perfidious brother of King Harold in the mid 1000s. He joined with one of Harold’s arch enemies, Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, in a rape and pillage stampede from the coast of Northern England to York. But King Harold, having heard of the invasion, led his army very swiftly north, where it ambushed Hardrada and Tostig, killing them both in a fierce battle, on September 25, 1074.
It is easy to imagine that this story might have greatly impressed the romantic, zealous, and creative young Taupin. Yes, Bernie did indeed say, according to East End Lights, a huge Elton John and Bernie Taupin fan club, that the name “Alvin Tostig” is fictitious. But I would wager a dollar against a dime that the name was inspired by the remarkable story of Harold and Tostig and all the other sundry characters in a remarkable English century. And Alvin might be a friend, aquaintance, or just some significant person with the name.
As you can tell by Bernie’s brutally impassioned and impetuous style, he is a pen-on-napkin sort of composer. (He wrote “Your Song” while eating breakfast one morning.) He often puts together thoughts in an associative process that pulls a verse out of a synthesis of real life and the boyish imagination that he’s never lost.
The comemorative cover album, Two Rooms, was so named because Elton and Bernie have never composed a song in the same room together. Bernie always writes the lyrics, as though they were poems, and then sends them to Elton, who, alone in a room, reads them, and evokes his expression of them at a keyboard just raw as it comes to him by pure inspiration. He “demonstrates” this process with the beautiful ballad, “Tiny Dancer”, and how it came about, on a video anthology, also called Two Rooms.
John and Taupin are incredible composers, experimenting in almost every musical genre, from the rotten nasy gutter blues of “Stinker” to the richly Wagnerian “Funeral for a Friend”, a compelling classical dirge.
In “Levon”, the fusion of John and Taupin is exemplified in its full glory. A key theme of the song that underlies its surreal plot is the endurance of faith. The “he shall be Levon” is delivered by Elton just as the peak of the melody’s crescendo begins to subside. In those long, sustained measures, amid the clashing of symbols and fitfully insistent violins and cellos, Elton seems to cry out, “He shall be-lieve on!”
Another dollar against a dime that Elton perfectly expressed what Bernie intended. They are a classic hand in glove pair. On the video, Bernie talks about what it’s like to hear his songs for the first time, having only seen them as poems. He said that he always likes what he hears, and that surprises were rare. (Makes me wonder about the flippy "I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself.) His own favorite, he said, was “Candle in the Wind”. (That would be the Norma Jean version, as Diana had not yet died.) Elton’s favorite was “Your Song”.
Anyway, thanks for reading.