Original Sin (thing)

"Original Sin" is the fifth track of Elton John's outstanding 2001 album "Songs From The West Coast". It was released as a single in 2002 in the UK and USA.

Well, that's the trivia dealt with, now I will share with you why I think this is one of Elton John's most beautiful songs. The album version is fairly unusual for an Elton John song due to the prominence of acoustic guitar. Whilst many of his songs feature guitars of some kind ("Rocket Man" springs to mind), the piano is the fundamental instrument. However, in "Original Sin" you have to wait one minute and fourteen seconds for there to be any piano at all. The introduction is a lovely piece of acoustic guitar music - beautifully delicate and very emotive. The first two verses and the first "pre-chorus" are backed by Rusty Anderson's gentle plucking and strumming. At this early stage of the song, it sounds very much like a traditional acoustic ballad. However, when the piano takes over at the chorus it begins to have the more classical Elton John sound.

Bernie Taupin's lyrics are, as ever, lovely and convey emotion very strongly. Taupin has a way of imparting very strong emotion into a listener and can conjure up some strong imagery. His lyrics have a sort of simplicity to them that genius. They also seem to reach into your soul and you interpret them in a way that is meaningful to your own life. For me, this song is about someone telling their love how they make them feel, maybe not out loud, but perhaps they are thinking to themself.

"I can't eat, can't sleep,
Still I hunger for you when you look at me,
That face, those eyes,
All the sinful pleasures deep inside."

This is a love and longing that seems to reach into every aspect of the person's life.

"Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in,
Underneath my skin,
Oh you were always my original sin,
And tell me why, I shudder inside, every time we begin,
This dangerous game,
Oh you were always my original sin."

There seems to be some sort of pain associated with this love. It is called a "dangerous game" after all. It is as if the person just cannot help how they feel about their love. We've probably all been there.

I'm not sure if Bernie Taupin's lyrics would have so much impact without Elton John's flawless way of expressing them. The two men are a perfect team. Elton, as usual, finds the perfect way of setting the lyrics to music. The key of the song is D-flat, which has a richness to it that adds to the power of the emotion the lyrics are conveying. The melody itself has a sort of bittersweet beauty to it, made all the better by Elton's warm, yet aching delivery.

I like Elton's voice nowadays. He does not attempt to hit the extremely high notes of his youth (such as in "Bennie And The Jets" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"), but instead settles for a lower register. That is not to say I don't like his voice before - I do, don't get me wrong. I just feel that now he conveys a lot more power and emotion than he used to.

My love of "Original Sin" (the song of course!) is not wholly derived from the album version. Although it is very good, my favourite version is Elton's solo piano version. The one I have heard is from the "Last Call With Carson Daly" show of March 22nd, 2002. I only have a low quality mp3 of the song someone recorded from the television, but the quality of the performance by far belies the quality of the recording. This song was made to be a solo piano piece I think. There is no band, just Elton and his piano, but the song does not suffer from the lack of other instruments, more, it feeds off it and rises to new levels. Elton's playing is exquisite, as you would expect from someone with such mastery of the piano. His left and right hands combine together in a very flowing way, rather than simply using the left hand in a percussive fashion. This flowing sound pulls the listener into the song and the rich sound washes over you.

Elton's vocal performance in the live version of this song blows his studio attempt away. Without his band, when it is just him and his piano, his vocals have a much more intimate quality to them. They seem far more powerful and emotive than the studio version. In my opinion, this performance might well be the best I have heard Elton sing. Certainly it is my favourite of his live vocal performances.

As you may have realised, I love this song! The live solo version is outstanding, though the only criticism I would make is that it ends a little weakly for me. It doesn't "wind down" enough - but I am just being picky. The Elton John/Bernie Taupin team has, I believe, with the live solo version of "Original Sin", produced as near a perfect song as you can get.

Bibliography:

www.eltonscafe.com - (where I found the mp3 I mentioned)

www.eltonography.com