"Daniel" by Elton John

Taking off, parachuting in

“Daniel is travelin' tonight on a plane / I can see the red taillights headin' for Spain / Oh, and I can see Daniel wavin' goodbye / God, it looks like Daniel / Must be the clouds in my eyes”

We had the tape of Elton’s “Greatest Hits”, and just like with the Beatles’ “Love Songs” tape, my first experience of these tunes was in isolation from their respective albums. I’m still mostly a singles guy, even though I appreciate albums.

It came out in the spring of 1973, and I was born that summer. So maybe it was playing on the radio while I was gestating and that’s why this song still stops me in my tracks.

“They say Spain is pretty, though I've never been / And Daniel says it's the best place he's ever seen / Oh, and he should know, he's been there enough / Lord, I miss Daniel / Oh, I miss him so much”

We lived in Mexico once when I was a baby and then again when I was six, so I got early exposure to the feeling of being an outsider. It’s alluring, but I don’t see embracing the “outsider role” as a good thing. For me it became a cheat that my brain relied upon to avoid the normal challenges associated with growing up and integrating in my community.

I eventually became that older brother who’s always booking off to other places.

For me it’s not Spain though, it’s Brazil. I’ve never set foot in Spain. But there’s something about going to Brazil for me which is a kind of antidote to my life in the US. Life is hard in Brazil, but I can perceive it as being simpler because I am an outsider there and my brain doesn’t feel the context of everything as deeply as it does in the US. “Expats” get something of a bird’s eye view, we’re not usually in the gears ourselves.

It’s much simpler to parachute in to someone else’s country for a limited time and learn how to go through the motions there, pretending you might belong there someday. I had to follow this road to its dark end before I got the lesson, eventually coming “home” to the US and accepting that I am a product of my place of origin whether I like it or not.

“Oh, Daniel, my brother, you are older than me / Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal? / Your eyes have died, but you see more than I / Daniel, you're a star in the face of the sky”

Apparently there’s a missing verse, pulled from the song late in production. Bernie Taupin had originally created a lyric about a young man in Texas who returned from Vietnam to a hero’s welcome, only to become alienated and yearn for a life overseas. But including this verse would have added length and specificity to a tune that, to me, is magical for it’s vagueness. I’ve always been vaguely uneasy, so this song can speak directly to me even though I’m not a veteran of a foreign war.

Wandering away does not make things better or easier for the vaguely uneasy. Being a wanderer makes you an easy mark for all kinds of nonsense. But regardless of what we might feel inside when we take off to another place, a citizen of the US is always delivering a small slice of the American Experience™ to somebody, everywhere we might go. So it’s a good idea to try to represent the culture with intention. There’s a lot of noise in our way, but we have much to gain from making solid personal connections outside the walls.

“Daniel is travelin' tonight on a plane…”

Here’s me trying to play the song:

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