Skyline Pigeon

"Skyline Pigeon" is a ballad by Elton John with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. It is the eighth track on his first album, Empty Sky. It was originally released in August 1968 as a single on the Pye label by Guy Darrell and simultaneously by Roger James Cooke on Columbia Records. It was also recorded by Deep Feeling, a band of which Guy Darrell was a member, in 1970, Dana, and Gene Pitney on his Pitney '75 album.

Musical structure

The original recording from the Empty Sky album has Elton John on harpsichord and organ. It is the only song on the album with John without other musicians. He wrote the song in the style of a hymn. The lyrics of the song are metaphorical - describing a pigeon that is flying high and free having been released from a human hand, with the line in the second verse, but most of all please free me from this aching metal ring, possibly revealing a human longing to be released from a broken marriage and set free to pursue new, truer dreams and ambitions - a theme that would reappear in 1975's Someone Saved My Life Tonight, using a similar metaphor of a butterfly flying free. Though there exists also the more literal interpretation of a war pigeon, as they were most commonly used to carry urgent messages in a small capsule affixed to the leg with metal bands, and carried on the backs of soldiers in small cages with a single wire door for the pigeon to look out of.

Elton John

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Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club's home stadium.

Skyline

A skyline is the horizon created by a city's overall structure, or by human intervention in a non-urban setting or in nature. City skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint as no two skylines are alike. For this reason, news and sports programs, television shows, and movies often display the skyline of a city to set a location. The term The Sky Line of New York City was first introduced in 1896, when it was the title of a color lithograph by Charles Graham for the color supplement of the New York Journal.

Paul D. Spreiregen, FAIA, has called a skyline "a physical representation [of a city's] facts of life ... a potential work of art ... its collective vista."

History

Early examples

The Colosseum in Rome

The Colosseum in Rome

Gizah pyramids

Gizah pyramids

Acropolis

Acropolis

Stonehenge's skyline has been known for millennia.

Stonehenge's skyline has been known for millennia.

Historic buildings in Toledo, Spain have been part of the city skyline for many years.

Common name

In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, trivial name, trivial epithet, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; this kind of name is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism, which is Latinized. A so-called "common name" is sometimes frequently used, but that is by no means always the case.

Sometimes common names are created by authorities on one particular subject, in an attempt to make it possible for members of the general public (including such interested parties as fishermen, farmers, etc.) to be able to refer to one particular species of organism without needing to be able to memorise or pronounce the Latinized scientific name. Creating an "official" list of common names can also be an attempt to standardize the use of common names, which can sometimes vary a great deal between one part of a country and another, as well as between one country and another country, even where the same language is spoken in both places.