Song for Guy

"Song for Guy"
Single by Elton John
from the album A Single Man
B-side	"Lovesick"
Released	28 November 1978 (UK) March 1979 (U.S.)
Recorded	August 1978
Genre	Pop easy listening
Length	5:02 (single) 6:34 (album) 8:29 (2003 remix)
Label	MCA Rocket
Songwriter(s)	Elton John
Elton John singles chronology
"Part-Time Love" (1978) "Song for Guy" (1978) "Return To Paradise" (1978)

"Song for Guy" is a mainly instrumental piece of music by Elton John. It is the closing track of his 1978 album, A Single Man.

Musical structure[]

Elton said this in the sleeve notes of the 7-inch single:

"As I was writing this song one Sunday, I imagined myself floating into space and looking down at my own body. I was imagining myself dying. Morbidly obsessed with these thoughts, I wrote this song about death. The next day I was told that Guy [Burchett], our 17-year-old messenger boy, had been tragically killed on his motorcycle the day before. Guy died on the day I wrote this song."^[1]

The song opens with an octaved solo piano, which is then accompanied by a looped Roland drum machine,^[2] with occasional shaker and wind chimes alternating; other keyboards are often layered in shortly after, with a bass guitar mainly accompanying this. It is instrumental until the end, in which the words "Life – isn't everything (3x)" are repeated over the primary melody.

It stands as one of the few songs written by Elton John alone.

Performance[]

In 1992, Elton played it together with Your Song to close some concerts. It was also one of his most successful singles in the UK, peaking at #4 in January 1979, and remaining on the chart for ten weeks.^[3] It wasn't released in the U.S. until March 1979 where it barely made the charts, peaking at #110. It was a modest success, though, on the American adult contemporary charts, where it peaked at #37 in the spring of 1979.

Use in media[]

The song was used extensively throughout all 6 episodes of the 1985 BBC comedy series Happy Families (the lead male character is named Guy). It is also used in the seventh episode of Diamonds in the Sky (1979), a BBC–Channel 9 Perth co-production about the history of commercial aviation, and is played frequently in the 1980 movie Oh Heavenly Dog starring Chevy Chase and Jane Seymour and directed by Rod Browning.^[4] The song also features prominently in the 2017 film Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool.^[5] In November 2020, the track was featured in The Crown, during a scene in which Lady Diana Spencer dances alone in a Buckingham Palace ballroom.

Personnel[]

• Elton John – piano, Mellotron, Polymoog, ARP String Ensemble, vocals
• Ray Cooper – wind chimes, shakers
• Clive Franks – bass

References[]

External links[]

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics