Shorter blog this week and a day late. Mainly because I didn’t want to do it yesterday (November 11, Remembrance Day) and also because I am on a quick trip to see Elton John in concert for the first time.
And in honour of that concert, I am going to go through the setlist and give all of you some insight into what those Elton John songs were actually about.
Madman Across the Water
This one is a classic early Elton song and we all know who it is about. It’s about that silly dude in Russia, none other than Vlad “the Impaler” Putin. The dastardly evil megalomaniacal doofus who invaded Ukraine only to have his ass handed to him, who declared an energy war against Europe that is currently wrecking his country’s financial viability and who blew up his largest natural gas export pipelines in a highly questionable attempt to lay the blame on… the USA? United Kingdom? Ukraine? Canada? Britney Greiner? Who knows. But the dude is clearly crazy.
Rocketman
While we all think of Elton as the true Rocketman (like, we all saw the movie), it doesn’t really fit him to a “T” so we take out the T and we are left with… Elon. That’s right, everyone’s favourite electric vehicle salesman and underground tunnel driller. Elon Musk. The dude that created SpaceX and facies himself as the most likely person to send a person to Mars. Although one has to say that is he runs his other companies with the same incisive business savvy that he is bringing to the table with his twitter acquisition, there ain’t no way I’m getting on one of those rockets.
Pinball Wizard
A remake of a classic Who rock opera theme, Pinball Wizard tells the tale of a Blind, Dumb and Deaf Boy who is a pinball savant. So talented that he wins despite himself and while exploited by those around him, ultimately he ends up as the biggest winner of all. It took me a while to figure out who this person was, since for longest time I thought it had to be a befuddled buffoon like Doug Ford, but then it came to me – this is about Joe Biden who keeps winning despite himself and outperforming expectations while all the rest of us think he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing. Plus, if you were to think of today’s political class, I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone aside from Biden who can sure play a mean pinball.
Philadelphia Freedom
This one is clearly for the Philadelphia Eagles who, at 8-0, are the last undefeated team in the NFL and have now been officially jinxed by yours truly, even though they play the lowly Washington Commanders. At least the rapture can last until Monday. Fly Eagles Fly! On the road to victory!
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
I know you all think of this as some epic love song, but I hate to break it to you, and I got this directly from Elton himself, this song is entirely about the energy industry, specifically oil. Think about it. The industry has been reminding us, practically pleading, on an almost daily basis not to overlook them and to remember how important they are to our lives and that losing everything (fossil fuels) would be like the sun going down on me.
The Bitch is Back
Simply put, this is going to be Donald Trump’s theme song if he chooses to announce a reinvigorated bid to run for president in 2024. Ron DeSantis does not have a theme song yet.
Levon
“Levon, Levon likes his money, he has a lot they say, spends his days counting. In a garage, by the motorway”. I have to say it, but Elton sure has an Elon fixation. It’s another one of these anagram without a letter opportunities. Take out the V, rearrange, presto-change-o and we have another one of these weird odes to Elon. Although to be honest, Elon does not have a son named Jesus (a more important question of course, why doesn’t he?) who wants to go to Venus. But there is that whole rocketman Mars nonsense. Pretty sure this is the last Elon song though.
Have Mercy on the Criminal
This is a classic early Elton John song but the concert version was clearly directed at one man and one man only. Donald Trump. It is well known in musical circles that Elton John is a big supporter of Donald Trump and had played some yuge private concerts for him. There is a school of thought that the song “Tine Dancer” is in fact a metaphor for the Donald’s childsized hands, but that is just rumour in my books.
Candle in the Wind
The classic tribute to Norma Jean/Marilyn Monroe, so gloriously re-released in 1999 as an homage to the late Diana Princess of Wales finds itself strangely repurposed in this particular iteration of Elton John’s farewell tour as a tongue in cheek send off for none other than our very own former premier Jason Kenney. At the show we were for sure hard pressed to draw the line from one to each, I mean Kenney’s not even blonde. No matter, it is what it is.
Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)
This song is dedicated to all the people who are desperate for Alberta to fight back against federal intrusion into provincial areas of jurisdiction even if they aren’t really, I mean these people are just itching for a fight, right? And what better way to honour them than a song about angry yobs going down to the pub on a Saturday night, probably armed and itching to get into a drunken brawl with a bunch of people they don’t know and then trying to piece it all together the next day. Come to think of it, this song should really have been dedicated to the standard electoral process we are seeing around the world.
Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word
She’s only been on the job for a month and she already has an Elton John dedication on his farewell tour. Well done Danielle Smith. While you would think this would be dedicated to our serial-apologizer in chief Justine Trudeau, that would be a mistake. Nope. This is pure Danielle who has been forced to issue grudging apologies on a number of subjects during her first few weeks as leader. Let’s hope that now she has been “overwhelmingly” elected as an MLA she exercises a little humility. I know I said I would give her some time to settle into the role before rolling over on her, but I can’t control what Elton does.
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Elton said at the show that this was one of his favourite song to perform. Tonight he dedicated it to the planet, the climate and COP27, the environmental bafflegap currently happening in Egypt (that I am desperately trying NOT to mention). Because we are all trying to save the planet in our own way, even if that means sending hundreds of world leaders and their attendant toadies and sycophants to hang out in tropical luxury in Egypt while thousands of protestors languish in Egyptian jails including the current lightning rod – Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British/Egyptian activist who has been imprisoned off and on for ten years and is on a dry hunger strike and on the verge of death. I mean, if you can’t save the planet, maybe try and save this guy?
I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues
This one was easy. This one was dedicated to all the investors in FTX, the crypto exchange that vapourized in a $36 billion puff of over-leveraged garbage tokens, bad debt, margin calls and shitty risk management. This includes founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the 30-something founder and one time high flying billionaire, who took all the monies, went to the Bahamas, issued himself tokens secured by his business, stripped the money out of the business, margined as much as he could with the worthless tokens as security and we are all left wondering how we fell for it. I guess that’s why they call it the blues.
Your Song
You can tell everybody, this is your song.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
This last song of the concert was dedicated by Elton to all the dreamers and fantastical virtue-signallers living in a fantasy world of their own creations, devoid of economic reality, inflation and war, where the world exists in a cozy little bubble powered by unicorn farts the as yet unbroken dreams of munchkins. Of course he’s singing here about Canada, where, slowly but surely, we are learning our future lies beyond the Yellow Brick Road and that the guy behind the curtain is a grifter…
Speaking of grift, as some of you regular readers know, I have a thing against conferences, especially pretentious and hypocritical ones attended by the world’s wealthy and elite. This year I have been doing my best to ignore COP27 and its typical litany of anti-energy climate doom. And I’ve been doing a good job, for the most part.
Sure, I’ve read the highlights about the developing world trying to shake down the rest of the world for yet more money and the calls from the climate celebrities to eliminate all fossil fuels immediately and the newly coined term climate collapse used recklessly and annoyingly by people who know better. Meanwhile all the minions and bureaucrats who do the real work are labouring behind the cenes trying to help develop policy ideas that might actually work without the doom and gloom rhetoric.
Here are some of the best quotes so far, ironically courtesy of the World Economic Forum, go figure.
“Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” This is from António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, feels dire.
“The global fossil fuel crisis must be a game-changer. So let us not take the ‘highway to hell’ but let’s earn the clean ticket to heaven.” — Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. Hmm, I see what you did there Ursula, opportunism and hope!
“We must see the so-called ‘dash for gas’ for what it really is: a dash down a bridge to nowhere, leaving the countries of the world facing climate chaos and billions in stranded assets, especially here in Africa. We have to move beyond the era of fossil fuel colonialism.” — Al Gore, former US Vice-President, climate crusader, biilionaire. Speaking of fossils, who dug this one up?
“I’m not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited. COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing.” Greta – 19 year old home schooled Swedish woman. Hey, maybe the girl has a point.
Please stop. I can’t take it anymore.
We have become a parody of ourselves.
The pious, moral superiority exhibited by this “Conference of the Parties” is precisely why these initiatives attract so much scorn and mockery. It’s all too much meaningless theatre and hyperbole. This entire gathering is nothing more than Davos on steroids.
Rich and privileged people, on our dime, hobnobbing about what we need to change before hopping on their private jets back to whatever green mansion they crawled out of while the great unwashed are forced to pick up the pieces of increased costs, needless economic dislocation, scarcity, and whatever other scourge fits into the “just transition” scenarios these earnest prophets of doom can’t define, explain, implement or actually care less about.
There is no just transition. It’s going to be a win for these people because the entire movement has managed to figure out how to sustain itself on limitless government largesse and FTX-like ponzis. And it’s going be a shitburger loss for the rest of us who have to pick up the pieces and figure out how to make it all happen.
I guess I can just give up and get myself a windmill. What’s that? Oh. That’s too bad.
“Renewable-energy producers have long touted the promise of cheap electricity, an assurance that’s helped them eat into the dominance of fossil fuels. But the pledge has gone too far, according to the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker.
Manufacturers such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S are seeing losses pile up as orders collapse at a time when they should be capitalizing on the turmoil in natural-gas markets. To blame — at least in part — is the industry’s insistence that clean electricity can only get cheaper, according to Henrik Andersen, chief executive officer of the Danish wind giant.
Soaring commodity costs and supply-chain bottlenecks have wiped out profits for much of the wind industry this year. Vestas expects its profit margin to be around -5% in 2022.
“The output from the turbine has never been more valuable,” Andersen said. “But we are losing money in manufacturing a turbine.” Vestas has raised prices more than 30% in the past year to help stem losses.
Wait – I thought renewable energy was on some downward curve where prices were soon going to be negative? You mean inflation happens in Roblox-renewable world too?
If only there was an inflation proof place to invest some cash aside from bitcoin, GICs and collapsing tech businesses, like a commodity business that makes actual “money”. Wonder where I would find that?
Maybe at the end of the yellow brick road.
(the link above is a playlist)
