Skyline Pigeon
| "Skyline Pigeon" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Elton John from the album Empty Sky | ||||
| Released | 3 June 1969 (UK) 13 January 1975 (US) 21 March 1980 (US) |
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| Recorded | DJM Studios, December 1968 - April 1969 Strawberry Studios, France, June 1972 |
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| Length | 3:37 (1969) 3:53 (1972) |
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| Label |
DJM Records MCA Records (US/Canada: 1975) |
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| Writer(s) | Elton John, Bernie Taupin | |||
| Producer(s) | Steve Brown (1969) Gus Dudgeon (1972) |
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| Empty Sky track listing | ||||
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"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.
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.
In 1972, John re-recorded the song with his band (Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson and Davey Johnstone) during the sessions for Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player. The new recording used piano instead of harpsichord, and strings and oboe arranged by Paul Buckmaster. Originally issued as the B-side of the hit-single "Daniel", it first appeared on CD in 1988 as part of the DJM issue of the Lady Samantha compilation album, then a few years later in the US and abroad on the 1992 Mercury release Rare Masters, and finally as a bonus track on the 1995 reissue of Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player.
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