Life is an Arbitrary Thing OR Reflections on Song for Guy By Elton John

Editor's Weekly Ramblings 109

Friday 15th July 2005

Life is an Arbitrary Thing OR Reflections on 'Song for Guy' By Elton John

I had the perfect lunch hour today. The sun was shining. A soft breeze was blowing, and I found myself in the local park. Smiling people all around me and 'Song for Guy' by Elton John set to 'repeat' mode on my ipod.

Now, 'Song for Guy' is a tune that is mainly instrumental. For 3 minutes 40 seconds it is lyric beats and scaling piano rhythms. Them right at the end, for a little over a minute, (and just when the sun appears to have set) Elton utters over and over again 'Life isn't everything'. Which I suppose you can take two ways. Either as a sombre statement, or as a gesture of affirmation that there is something after you die.

Song for Guy' was a tribute to a Rocket Records motorcycle messenger, Guy Burchett, who was killed in a road accident. It was on Elton John's 1979 'A Single Man' album, and reached number four in the UK in 1980. It wasn't released in the US, because there was already another artist with an instrumental in the charts at the time, and the Record Company thought it might be overkill to have two.

The tune is anything but downbeat. The underlying message through the beat is affirmative. But to me it seems to say that life is an arbitrary thing. One minute you are here the next you aren't. So regardless of whether you believe there is anything after this. It is worth seizing the day and sucking the marrow from life now. It is like the sea. The tides come in and out and there is no way to hold them back.

Whether or not there is something after you die is kind of irrelevant. The fact that you are going on a great holiday next week to see the sun and the ocean, doesn't mean you should live in a cave this week. Anyhow, given recent events, it made me think.

The last week has seen one globally momentous event. Agreement over aid for Africa. One regionally momentous event. London winning the 2012 Olympics. And one tragic event. The London bombing. Of course, in truth, much more than that has been going on. But I at least am somewhat like a Gerbil, in the respect that any more than a couple of things at a time, and I lose concentration. So those are my abiding memories of recent times. And they strike me as an arbitrary collection of what it means to be human.