Avoiding Responsibility

"Change the song; it's making me weep," she says quietly, shrugging several tears off of her beautiful porcelain face.

But the request perplexes me; I've never known anyone to cry when they hear "Bennie and the Jets". All I've ever done personally is dance every time it graces my auditory canals; my money maker shakes gloriously upon every utterance of the chorus.

Why is she yearning to cry at the perfection that is Bennie and the Jets? Is it because Bennie and the Jets is on the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the album that was not very well received in its own time? It shouldn't be; the album has sold at least 31 million copies, regardless of what its initial performance was. I don't think I've done anything 31 million times, let alone any single act worth 31 million iterations. Maybe that's it; maybe Elton John's immense success makes her feel bad or intimidated or something else nonsensical.

Women's feelings are confusing.

It's foolish to think that Elton John's success has eclipsed her happiness, anyway. She's a promising medical student with a bright future ahead, no matter what path she goes down. So maybe the song made her sad for a reason other than herself.

Maybe it's because Elton John is gay. She could be crying because her parents are hyper-religious and thoroughly despise the gays; they think that, if there is a heaven, Elton John will never reach it. That I can't abide by. I can accept a lot of things: the insignificance of my own life, the fact that I will die someday, the cancellation of both Arrested Development AND Firefly; but I refuse to accept the notion that the author of Bennie and the Jets will not get into "heaven" (represented here in quotes because any heaven without Elton John must similarly be void of the song Bennie and the Jets and, thusly, no heaven to me). Assuming he was denied entrance to heaven for his gayness, we can determine that, through the transitive property, neither his music, nor anyone who bought his music would be allowed entry, either. And I have a hard time believing God would bar several million people from entry simply for loving a phenomenal song; and how could we, the fans of Bennie and the Jets, not love it's very creator? How can one love the stream and not the river that feeds it? The love directed towards Elton John must grant him exemption from his gayness (assuming, of course, that he needs exemption to begin with). She couldn't possibly be worrying over that.

Perhaps she laments Elton John's inability to get married in America, that he will never be able to be publicly recognized for his love. But there is little she can do about that, unfortunately, for the United States government would have a hard time indeed of making gay marriage legal. They could give the LGBT community civil unions with identical rights to those of married couples (without giving them the one thing they're looking for: being able to say they are married), but marriage is very much a religious concept. The state technically doesn't even have the ability to declare gay marriage legal and even if they did it would blur the line between church and state irreparably, which would be catastrophic to say the least. And since she is not one to focus on problems she can't help, that's out, too.

Hmm...

Oh! I got it! I broke up with her right before the song started and turned the music up to dance (you don't just waste a radio play of "Bennie and the Jets", that NEVER happens). In retrospect, that wasn't a very good thing of me to do. It was pretty callous and borderline evil.

Well, shucks, maybe Elton John will go to hell.