Song of the Day 9/19: Elton John, “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”

Though Queen Elizabeth remains dead, Britain’s almost endless period of mourning — even our British friends said yesterday that enough was enough — will come to a close today with another day-long ceremony culminating in her burial. The music will be somber — sorry, I meant sombre — but it won’t include this Elton John classic, which he’s used to open many of his concerts since its debut on his 1973 double LP “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

John wrote the song not for a friend but by imagining the music he would want played at his own funeral. It segues into “Love Lies Bleeding” for the simple reason that the first ended and the second began in the same key, A major. Many critics consider it one of his finest recordings.

The synthesizer introduction was neither played nor, strictly speaking, written by John. Engineer David Hentschel cobbled together bits and pieces from several songs on the album to create the music he performed on the ARP 2500, an early synthesizer. Hentschel played the solo on “Rocket Man” on the same instrument.