Elton John’s Ticking is a life-long favorite song that I remember listening to as a first-grader in Laos. This live version is one with which I was unfamiliar before now, and which seems a little disjointed compared to the studio version, but certainly acceptable.
I have been digitizing my LP records and sending most of them to slaughter (i.e., the Salvation Army) but Caribou, the album this song concludes, will never leave my possession. I would say that I want to be buried with this album but i expect to be cremated. Maybe I should instruct that my body be cremated along with this LP record and a handful of others. Holy crap that’s an awesome idea.
I had to wait for the Internet to learn, once and for all, that Ticking is not based on actual events. The Kicking Mule bar in Queens never existed, no hail of police bullets gunned down a disturbed “male caucasian with a gun” who had “gone berserk in Queens”, at least not in this specific type of scenario.
My belief that this song was based on actual events might have been guided by the Al Pacino movie Dog Day Afternoon, which is the first movie I ever saw. I saw Dog Day Afternoon in Laos around the time I first heard this song. As a first-grader one doesn’t necessarily process facts versus assumptions very well, but I seem to remember being told that if Dog Day Afternoon was based on real-life events (it was) then this contemporaneous song must also have its roots in fact. Wrong-o.
Sometimes I wish facts were harder to come by. This song is still a favorite but it had a lot more power for me when I thought it was based on actual events.
