Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
The Apollo space program was still in progress in 1972; Apollo 16 launched on April 16th of that year. Two days earlier, Elton John released “Rocket Man,” a look at a world where the occupation of astronaut came not with built-in heroism, but with the drudgery of any job, where going back to the old grind held more heavy sighs than shouts of triumph. That may have been the message, but it was easy to miss behind the ascending slide guitar and the soaring sing-along chorus, as top ten charts worldwide went on to prove.