Stacks of 45’s – Rocket Man/Susie (Dramas)

When I was young before I had cassettes, the only good way of making a playlist of songs was to stack 45s on the turntable. I would arrange for them to play my favorite songs in my favorite order. These posts are about records I had in my stacks.

Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time) (4:35) (was written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John. I used to make sure it played while I was building model rockets in my room. It was released April 17, 1972 (55328), and was the lead single on Elton John’s “Honky Château” album. It charted in the UK at number 2 and on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 6.

Inspired by the short story “The Rocket Man” in The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Taupin has acknowledged borrowing from Pearls Before Swine’s 1970 “Rocket Man,” written by Tom Rapp, a literal retelling of the Bradbury story.

The song describes a Mars-bound astronaut’s mixed feelings at leaving his family in order to do his job. In this future, space travel had just become another occupation, and space travelers were not heroes anymore.

The B-side is a good one too, “Susie (Dramas)” (3:25). Elton played piano and Farfisa organ on the original with the usual band lineup of guitarist David Johnstone, bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson. It was Johnstone’s first recording on electric guitar; his previous work was on acoustic. This song places Elton John in character as a county-fair-level musician who is happy as can be as long as he has his pretty little black-eyed Suzie by his side.