There has been something about Elton John’s current Yellow Brick Road tour — which the British pop icon says will be the end of almost 50 years of constantly being on the road and includes stops Nov. 6 and Nov. 15, 2019, at Boston’s TD Garden — has crystallized his place in the cultural consciousness. Certainly, the man’s songbook is legendary like few others: “Rocket Man,” “Your Song,” “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” “Levon,” “Daniel,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and a seemingly endless torrent of instantly recognizable hits. But there have been times when John’s been not so beloved, even derided, and with 30 studio albums and assorted ephemera, there’s obviously going to be a large range of style and quality in his songbook. How is one supposed to grapple with such an immense body of work?

Well, one can spend weeks listening to everything, trying to separate the artist from the pop iconography that comes with him. Or we could ask musicians on the internet to agree to cover his songs without knowing in advance what they’re going to be doing, as we’ve done previously with Phil Collins and Madonna. As we’ve done before, the songs were randomly assigned to musicians, but this time, there was a great deal of dichotomy in the artists’ reactions. Elton John, it seems, elicits strong emotions, and for some evokes strong memories.

“I remember when ‘Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy’ came out," says Worcester singer and promoter Deb Beaudry. “We met at my best friend's house to listen to it. Now I hardly remember what's on the record. My Girl Scout troop made a visit to our local radio station, and I requested ‘Crocodile Rock,’ which they would not play because it was ‘too racy.’ … Saw him in the early ’90s, I think at the Centrum, before he ‘went Disney’ ... Wish I could have seen him with the reformed band … That was a fantastic lineup. When they rocked and it was all arrogance and glitter.”

"To me, he was the embodiment of all I had never seen living on a farm," recounts singer Helen Sheldon, who tackled "Valhalla" and "Blues for My Baby and Me" with Rich "Amazing Dick" Leufstedt. "He was style and charisma and color and joy and diversity and love."

Many of the participants expressed admiration for John's piano playing, his vocals and his theatrics. But really, it was the cultural weight of the songs that was most imposing.

Massachusetts musician Doug Geer said that he was “psyched and mortified” when he drew “Your Song.” “Psyched because it was a well-known song, mortified because it was Elton’s masterwork.” Worcester experimental music artist Itoarazi was likewise pleased — at first. “Uh oh,” he recounts thinking when he drew “Honky Cat.” “This is a well-known song!! How do I do right by it?!” Savoir Faire singer Sarah Fard said of “Tiny Dancer,” “Noooooooo! Impossible!!!! … One of the most cherished of his repertoire, how do I not ruin everyone’s expectations?!?”

Therein is the core of the Elton John puzzle: His songs that are well-known are almost ubiquitous, practically hard-wired into the culture and difficult for a musician to personalize. And his songs that aren't well-known? There’s usually a reason for that.

“I hated it,” said Worcester artist J Hams, of the song “Elderberry Wine.” “It was filler and I found it nearly unlistenable. The honky-tonk piano was awful, overused.” Likewise, Beaudry, who confesses to having several John songs in her karaoke repertoire, found herself confounded by “Skyline Pigeon.” “I had never heard this song or even heard of it,” she said. “Later, I found out that some people actually really like it. I could have sworn it was from Elton John's Disney theme-song days because it was just so incredibly sappy and the first version I listened to was simply accompanied by harpsichord. … But the longer I stayed with the song and it started to become my vision, I started identifying with it and understanding it and loving it for the pure schmaltz that it is. And I turned it into a pop punk song.”

Beaudry hits at what seems both obvious and revelatory about John’s music: The fact that you can strip a lot of it down to fairly conventionally structured rock or blues songs. Michael Kane, of the band Michael Kane and the Morning Afters, performed growly, stripped-down versions of “I’m Still Standing,” “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” and “Tell Me When the Whistle Blows.”

Likewise, Alabama-based musician George Hartline, of the band the Harmless Doves, whipped up a country-fried rendition of John’s (ahem) “Screw You,” and Central Mass. singer-songwriter Gracie Day delivered a smoky, acoustic “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.” On the one hand, the music seemed to lend itself to that treatment, definitely intentional on the part of John and his longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin. The grass-roots Americana themes are explicit throughout the duo’s work, including on everything from “Honky Cat” to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” from which Boston singer-songwriter Kerr Griffin evoked a natural folkiness. There were other times though, such as on the lesser-known “Texan Love Song,” which felt almost appropriative coming from two Englishmen.

“The biggest challenge was deciding how best to present the message of the song,” says Worcester-area musician Lovina, who tackled the song with local musician Milo. “It was a social commentary, and some of the terms were just not relevant to today. The decision was made to make it more current by changing some of the lyrics. Milo and I hashed them out and decided together which ones to change. Then the other challenge for me was playing banjo. This was the first time I ever played banjo on a song! Learning the chords and pretending I could do note stuff was a fun challenge. I thought it sounded primitive but I went with it.”

California musician Jesse Carzello, of the band bobby blunders, also noted problems with “Rotten Peaches,” saying, “I changed a couple phrases that I didn't feel natural for me that struck me as a touch inauthentic, like an Englishman vaguely familiar with Southern vernacular. The big harmony part at the end felt too dramatic for my more subdued version, so I simplified it and threw in a guitar solo in an effort to connect with it more and put a stamp on it."

They won’t alone struggling with John’s personas, although for different reasons: Adds Southern California singer Katyana Hall, about receiving the song “Talking Old Soldiers”: “What? Why do I have this song? It’s about beer, and I’m 12.” Clearly, this is not a perfect system, but her mother OK’d it. She solved the problem by “making it not a bar song about how I had a drink today. I overcame it by turning it into me talking about a friend, somebody who nobody paid attention to but who I wanted people to think of as a good person on the inside.” The SoCal-based Undecideds — featuring siblings Dexter, 11, and Chloe, 13, and their dad, Sean — had similar issues, writing that they were “still trying to figure out what this song is about. It’s either about drugs or it’s about a Confederate soldier who just got shot.” Have we mentioned that parents signed off on this? We could have given them Disney songs, but the kids scoff at being treated differently than everybody else.

The point being, the subject matter of some of John’s songs can be a little wilder than is immediately apparent, especially for its time. Tackling “Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy,” Colorado musician Gregory David Caunt said, “Do I really have to sing that ‘little dirt cowboys turn brown in their saddles – sweet chocolate biscuits!’? If so, maybe I just make this whole thing really weird." But then I decided that no, I can do a bit of lyrical editing in my own version to put it squarely into the fun and uplifting camp, instead of kind of ambiguous and strangely suggestive.”

Tony Brown of the Worcester-based ensemble the Duende Project, which produced an adaptation of “No Shoe Strings on Louise,” came away from the project less of a fan than he began. “I realized two things,” he said. “Some of those lyrics are not only bad but creepy, and I like his work far less than I would have said I did before the challenge.” Others felt differently. Musician, producer and WCUW DJ Steve Blake, who did “Take Me to the Pilot” with Punk Rock TreeHouse, was more forgiving. “I always thought he had a boodle-load of talent and was an above-average pop artist. Heard most of his major hits in real time and enjoyed them. Like any artist with a huge back catalog, there's going to be some dreck.”

But for many, the process of spending several weeks with Sir Elton’s songbook proved endearing, with several of the musicians coming away with either a new or a renewed appreciation.

“Elton is one of a handful of people on the planet that can cut himself and music comes out,” says Geer. “Not all of it is perfection but much of it was fantastic. Plain and simple – I can't imagine the last 50 years of popular music without him in it.”

Visit the story on Telegram.com to hear all the cover songs created for the Great Cover Song Challenge.

