Future Workbook: Rocket Man

I did the Art or Music section of my future workbook on Elton John's "Rocket Man." This song is good. No, great. It has all of the qualities of great pop song, namely a catchy chorus that errs on the side of sentimentality but is all at once fully beautiful and memorable. Not half beautiful, half mawkish, like so much of pop. And I like the lyrics' wistful escapism. It is the voice of the householder constrained by his circumstances, which of course should make him happy but do not. He knows there must be something more. Is this where we're head in the comes years, toward extraterrestrial "alone time" just to get away from it all? And is space where we're going to find the solace of nature when the trees and flora and fauna are gone? Perhaps it's prophetic. Or perhaps it's simply a song shaped by both its lyricist's creativity and whatever rhymes well. Perhaps more of the latter, because I think creative endeavors such as song lyrics often consist more of unintentional articulations of the problems that lie beneath the surface, rather than deliberately chosen phrases constructing an argumentative social commentary. That's not to say that songs are not both at once, but they emerge more from the purely creative process, as opposed to say, the process that produces some philosophical treatise. But I suppose there's creativity there too. Humph.