Trying to describe my connection with this song is like trying to remember the details of a dream. I can remember the general shape of it, and the way it made me feel, but the finer points and the chronology of it are hazy. Tiny Dancer is important, but the reasons why are jumbled up, intangible. Songs can have a way of attaching themselves to specific memories, but Tiny Dancer is connected to me in a broader sense, at a cellular level: my first home, looking out the car window at night, my mom’s favourite song. Frankly, much of Elton John’s discography is a staple in the soundtrack of my childhood. Tiny Dancer, Your Song, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Rocket Man… they all have ways that they’re woven into my memories more deeply than I can pick apart thread by thread.

I took on Tiny Dancer as a challenge to myself. It’s a song that I’ve loved for as long as I can remember, and I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if I could play and sing this?” When I undertook the song, the vocal was just barely out of my range, and the piano part (while quite simplified for my sake) is a tricky one for a guitarist to pull off. I took it as a challenge to raise the level of both my singing and playing, and as a result it has come to be one of my ‘benchmark’ songs. It’s a song that measures my development as a musician. Like Hallelujah, it’s a song with which I will likely never be completely satisfied with my performance, and I can’t express what a good thing that is.

Tiny Dancer represents the threshold of what, for me, is the standard of ‘good’ singing. When I listen to my performance in the video above, I am secretly cringing at every missed step and each note slightly off pitch. For a while I hesitated to even share it, but for as many mistakes as I hear in this video, there are just as many moments that stoke my pride in the work that I have put in. As an artist, you have to decide how good is ‘good enough.’ For me, perfect is never going to be good enough, so I’ll settle for 95% of what I’m capable of right now.

I’m choosing to share this song with you now as a statement. “This is how far I’ve come, and look at how far I have left to go.” I’m proud of where I am now, but God damn if I’m not excited by the thought that I’m not finished, not even close.