Sara Bareilles brought a fresh flavor to this Elton John classic, and we’re here for it! The American singer turned the sweet ballad “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” into a brooding masterpiece. Bareilles sang the hit at The Kennedy Center in 2024, kicking off the song with an ominous piano part. She then showed off her angelic voice, creating a somber mood in the verse, before changing to a hopeful vibe in the chorus, which came across like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.
The National Symphony Orchestra added a tasteful backing, with the wind instruments and strings shifting the mood from dark to hopeful so perfectly. It’s a real mark of an accomplished singer-songwriter if they can take such a well-loved hit as “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and come at it from a completely new angle. The Music Man readers will definitely want to tune into Bareilles’ stunning high notes just after the three-minute mark, which created an epic climax to the song.
PBS uploaded Bareilles’ cover of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on December 30, 2024, and it has since surpassed one million views. Fans could not get enough of the unique cover and added comments such as “Who agrees this is a masterpiece” and “Wow. Her vocal technique is rock solid. She makes singing this incredibly difficult song seem like a walk in the park. Her artistry. She’s one in a million.”
Bareilles has blessed us with many live memorable performances over the years. Another great moment from the Californian singer came when she performed her song “Gravity” in a solo piano arrangement at The Warfield in San Francisco. This live cut features a really special moment after the 2:30 mark, where the crowd sings the hook so beautifully back to Bareilles before she brings the song home. The Music Man readers will also want to hear her stunning high vocal run after 3:20 in the video. What a vocalist!
Elton John released “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on September 7, 1973, as the second single from his seventh studio album of the same name. John wrote the music while his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin provided the lyrics. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” is considered by some to be John’s finest hour, and Rolling Stone listed it at number 390 on its 2010 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song went double Platinum in the US and Platinum in the UK. It has remained a firm fan favorite in the years since, with the song currently sitting in John’s top 10 most played songs on Spotify, with 486 million streams.
