“Levon” by Elton John

"Levon" is one of the grand, slow-building ballads on Elton John's 1971 album Madman Across the Water, cut on 27 February that year with Gus Dudgeon producing. John's piano leads the procession, Brian Dee's harmonium hums in the pews, and Paul Buckmaster's orchestra, which he arranged and conducted himself, swells up behind it until the whole thing plays like a hymn for a man nobody quite knows.

Bernie Taupin's words sketch that man, Levon, and a father named Alvin Tostig whom Taupin says he made up. Dudgeon claimed the name was a nod to Levon Helm, drummer and singer of the Band, then John and Taupin's favorite group; Taupin denied any link in 2013, and Helm, by Robbie Robertson's account, didn't care for it anyway.

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