MOG

I was in a grocery store a few months ago waiting in line with the unhealthy snack foods I intended to purchase, when I was tapped gently on the shoulder.

I try, let me quickly add here, to be, or at least behave like, an open-minded, progressive sort of fellow, who avoids forming stereotypes of people, overgeneralizing, etc., but behind me was a very large African-American gentleman with a bulky gold chain worn over his shirt, a baseball cap slightly askew, alarmingly baggy pants - a generous assortment of the outward signs that usually announce someone's devotion to rap music, a genre in which I have tried unsuccessfully to find merit for over twenty years. The expression on his face took me by surprise, though: he looked absolutely transported.

"Excuse me," he said, gesturing towards the speaker above, "but do you know who this is?" I hadn't been paying it any attention, but identified the song immediately. "This is 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' by Elton John," I said. "Elton John," he repeated, looking as if the name were entirely new to him. He asked me if I had a pen, which I did (I always carry a pen on me); wrote the name on the palm of his hand and handed it back.

I stole a couple of quick glances back at him before my turn at the register came, but he paid me no mind. His face radiated bliss, like a baby in its mother's arms. I like to think someone's life changed that afternoon, and that I played a small role. My guess is he headed straight from the grocer's to a record store.

I hope he picked the right Elton John record(s) when he got there. Elton's stretch of authentic genius was quite short for someone so high up on the list, extending only from 1973-1975. But everything from Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player to Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy is (and I believe this is my only employment of this cruelly abused word thus far as a mogger) awesome.

In his prime, everything Elton John touched was buoyant with happiness. His tearjerker ballads were happy. The songs about people dying young were happy. The angry songs were happy. The funeral dirges were happy. Nowadays, happy music is associated with superficiality and foolishness, teenpop bands, halftime acts. Well, I don't care how uncool it is to be anything but morose or belligerent; the world needs some cheering up, and it's damned difficult to pull off musically.

Hats off to Elton John, the fifth greatest of all time - louder than Concorde but not quite as pretty.