Saturday, September 19, 2009

He was born on a Christmas day, when the New York Times said God is dead

I'm not an Elton John fan, but for some reason I always liked "Levon."

While the character was fictional, he was named after Levon Helm, lead singer of The Band, which apparently was Bernie Taupin and Elton John's favorite band.

The "when the New York Times said God is dead" line always fascinated me. I wonder if that bit of lyric was inspired not by a Times article, but by the Time Magazine cover story written by this man.

3 comments:

Crabby Apple Seed: said...

This is my favorite Elton John song, too! It seems so bittersweet, though I'll admit I kind of don't get the story it's telling.

the surly librarian said...

I suspect it refers to this article: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10E10FB3C5D177B93C7AB1789D95F408485F9&scp=1&sq=new+gods&st=p

NYCGirl said...

Huh, I always thought it was "The New York Times had gone away," or something to that effect. Who knew? :)