Released March 12, 1982 Genre Rock | Recorded September-October 1981 | |
B-side "Take Me Down to the Ocean" Length Single - 4:06
LP - 5:05 Label Geffen (US)
Rocket (UK) | ||
"Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)" is a song composed and performed by English musician Elton John, with lyrics by longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin. It originally appeared on John's 1982 album Jump Up!. The song is a tribute to John Lennon, who had been shot and killed one and a half years earlier.
Contents
Composition and background
Lennon and John were good friends, and in 1974, Lennon appeared on John's single cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", the B-side of which was Lennon's "One Day at a Time". The pair later collaborated on "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" which appeared on Lennon's "Walls and Bridges" album. Lennon agreed to appear in concert with John if "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" became a #1 single, which it did. On Thanksgiving Day, 1974, Lennon and John performed these two songs along with "I Saw Her Standing There" at Madison Square Garden.
When Lennon's son Sean was born in 1975, John was made godfather.
After Lennon's death, John was concerned that a tribute song to the late Beatle would be "clumsy" – until he saw Taupin's lyrics. The song is titled "Empty Garden", as Lennon's last live performance was at Madison Square Garden (with John in 1974). It has been said that the line "Can't you come out to play?" is a reference to Lennon's song Dear Prudence.
John wrote and recorded an earlier instrumental tribute to Lennon, "The Man Who Never Died", which was issued as the B-side of "Nikita" in 1985 and eventually included as a bonus track on the remastered reissue of Ice on Fire.
The song is written using the chords of the E major scale.
Live versions
Elton has rarely performed the song live, after the 1982 world tour, because it brings back many painful memories of Lennon's murder, as he once stated during a concert on November 5, 1999, at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and prior to that at a concert on October 9, 1988 at The Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the latter case, John played the song, as well as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," in his third encore to mark what would have been Lennon's 48th birthday.
Notable performances include one at Madison Square Garden, with Lennon's widow Yoko and Elton's godson Sean in the audience in 1982. He also performed the song during his first appearance on the April 17, 1982 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Johnny Cash.
In April 2013, John added the song to the setlist of The Million Dollar Piano, his residency show at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Personnel
NB: three percussion instruments - namely castanets, maracas and tambourine - are audible, possibly overdubs from Jeff Porcaro or perhaps an uncredited percussionist.