Note: the episode transcript and MP3 of the
interview
are available at the
Enough Rope website.
ANDREW DENTON: Elton John, welcome.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Thank you very much.
ANDREW DENTON: Congratulations on the success of Billy Elliot.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Thank you. Yeah it’s been fantastic. It’s just been such a great thing to be involved with. I mean it all started really at the Cannes Film Festival when we saw the film being shown, and I just was so floored by the film and it had a deep personal effect on me. At the party afterwards, I met Stephen Daldry the Director and Sally Green who is our friend who owned the Old Vic Theatre and David was with me, my partner, and we said this is going, this would make a great stage musical, even at that stage.
ANDREW DENTON: Has the legend already become exaggerated? Because I read you were so overwhelmed the first time you saw it that you had to be carried out on a stretcher.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Ah well not a stretcher, but I mean I was sobbing in the cinema. It’s a father and son thing. And you know every father and son film that I see, that you know, has a relationship thing with a father and son, kind of gets to me because of my relationship with my father, which was prickly at best, which improved towards the latter stages of his life. But no, it was the story, just the story. And the story of someone wanting to be successful coming from a background like that, wanting to do something entirely different that had never been done in the family before. And so I identified with that and it all started from there and you know, it just suddenly, we were writing Billy Elliot the Musical.
[FOOTAGE FROM BILLY ELLIOT — MINERS SCENE]
ANDREW DENTON: I’m fascinated in the way you write, because as I understand it you wrote 23 melodies in 23 days, they sort of poured out of you. Is that correct?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I’ve always been a quick writer like that, whether it’s the Elton John album or whether I’m writing for The Lion King, or Aida or this. If you’re writing a musical, it’s much easier than if you’re doing an album, say where you don’t know what you know, what order the songs are going to end up in, it’s just a mish mash of songs.
ANDREW DENTON: What are you drawing on? I’m curious about what’s in your head…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well I lived through that period… in England when that was all going on and I’ve always, you draw on the music. I mean, I’m the guy who writes the music, the lyrics were already there. They were very, very honest lyrics. They were about what was going on and I just drew on folk music, traditional English music, which has been part of my background growing up and it was very easy because I just wanted to make the melodies and the poignant melodies very kind of simple and folk-like and hymn-like.
ANDREW DENTON: I know that you’re a wide student of all sorts of music, so when a lyric lands in front of you, is it like there’s an encyclopaedia in your head of different types and styles of music and chords come to you?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Instinctively, yeah. It’s because of 40 years of writing with Bernie Taupin, which it is this year and I’ve always written like that. I mean, I’ve always written to lyrics. I’ve never really written… with a melody first, except with the Scissors Sisters on I Don’t Feel Like Dancing… and the other track on their album, which was the first time I’ve ever written in a room with someone else. I’m always alone with a lyric and you look at the lyric and something happens. It’s like when you listen to radio as a child, when you listened to a play on the radio your imagination suddenly was incredibly “What’s happening there?” And you saw what was happening in your head by hearing it on the radio. And I look at the lyric sheet and I can see what the song is going to be more or less immediately. Not every song, every lyric. Some lyrics are more difficult to write to.
ANDREW DENTON: It must be a very beautiful thing, I mean, yes it’s a gift, a beautiful thing, to see words and they come out as music. Do you hear music all the time, or or do you need a lyric to do that?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I don’t hear music all the time. I only need lyrics to suddenly switch, you know, flick the switch on. So the process never gets dull. I’ve never, ever gotten fed up with writing like this and it’s kind of, you know, it’s a non-abusive way of writing…[Laughs] Because there’s no one else in the room, so there’s no one you can really argue with. And I’m very fortunate in the fact that I’ve been writing with Bernie Taupin and Gary Osborne and Lee Hall and Tim Rice and people who, you know, I’ve really loved working with, who haven’t been argumentative and, you know, have suggested things along the way. But more or less, you know, it’s been a collaboration thing, even though we’re not writing together, we’re very collaborative. And I love being part of a team, I love it. I’m not a solo kind of guy who wants to do everything on their own. I’ve always been part of a team, a songwriting team. I like being part of a creative process.
ANDREW DENTON: It is a universal story, it’s a quest, it’s a journey and it has other touch points for you too, because when you were a kid you went to The Royal Academy…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm mm…
ANDREW DENTON: Not unlike Billy…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yep…
ANDREW DENTON: Going to the Ballet Academy…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: Did you, do you relate strongly to that journey as well?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah because of fear involved in it. I mean there was a smell of fear in those places. For me, even though I didn’t live a long way away from it, I didn’t have to come down from you know the North East of England, I still had to get on the tube and go to somewhere that was completely unknown to me and the journey was very similar.
ANDREW DENTON: The other thing is of course your grandmother was also very supportive of you wasn’t she?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah my gran. I grew up with my grandmother and in the first few years of my life I lived in my grandmother’s house and my grandmother was a pivotal point in my life, she was there, she was always there for me. I think grandparents always are there, you know, if your mum and dad are upset with you, you run to your grandparents because then you know you’ll get a little bit of sympathy from them. And my grandmother was so important. As was my granddad when, you know, he died a very early age. But my grandparents on both sides of my family were very important. I think they are to children. They’re very loving and very supportive and as I say you can get away with murder with them.
ANDREW DENTON: Why didn’t your dad approve of you?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I’ll be honest with you. I think my mum and dad should never have gotten married. They got married bef after the war as a lot of people did, they weren’t really suited to each other, and they’d both married the wrong person…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I didn’t hate my father, I was afraid of him because he was a very strict disciplinarian and he didn’t approve of me doing what I did at all. My mother’s got the letters to prove that, you know, “I don’t want you to rock n’ roll”, “I don’t want you to do this…”, “I want you to work in a Bank, be in the Air Force…” But that was his upbringing. That’s why he, I mean, I’ve forgiven. I have no issues about that anymore. But he did shape the way I was and it made me very determined to be successful at what I was going to do and made music my life. I just think, as a lot of people, you know, my mum could’ve married a much more suitable person and my dad could’ve married and they just didn’t suit each other.
ANDREW DENTON: Did you win his approval in the end? Did he actually say to you “Son…”?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I made my peace with my father in the end…
ANDREW DENTON: But he saw this amazing talent, this career…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah, and you know he went on to be a great father. He had four other children, four sons and you know he married the right woman and had, you know, the sons that he wanted and cared about. And you know a lot of people make that mistake with their first child, I’ve seen it happen so many times, but we made our peace. We still didn’t connect…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: We were still awkward with each other. That awkwardness never goes. I think if you have that thing, that gap and you don’t know how to sit down and talk or you know we were both awkward in each other’s company. But he was very proud of me in the end and I was Chairman of Watford Football Club, so when I went up to Liverpool and watched Liverpool and Watford or Everton and Watford, he used to come to the games…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Because he lived up there and we saw each other then. But it was never a cosy situation, because I just think we were too awkward with each other.
ANDREW DENTON: Can’t see you as a Banker, the world’s most flamboyant Banker. I can’t see…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well I’m dressed as one today but as I say yeah… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: I’ve never seen a Banker with that…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Ah no…
ANDREW DENTON: Jewellery I’m sure…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Ah thank you…
ANDREW DENTON: And there should be more like that in my opinion…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah, yeah. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: You said before when you’re in a room composing, you’re just alone with yourself in the room…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: Which means you’re also your critic. Pete Townsend talked about the the danger of being successful. He said, “Look I could shit bricks and the public would go out and buy them…”
SIR ELTON JOHN: Right…
ANDREW DENTON: What’s your filter? How do you know what’s good? How do you know what’s not good?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I think you have to have a reference point. I mean when I play it, if I write a song and I play it to Bernie, who’s been around me for 40 years, he, you know, I can see whether he likes it or not. Sometimes when you write a song it’s so precious to you that if anyone suggests changing it a little bit, you get very upset…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You have to get over that. There’s sometimes where you can’t see the wood for the trees and you know a little change here and there that’s suggested actually works, so I’m not precious about being, you know. I’m a little bit precious when I start, you know. It’s like when you play someone something and you think “It’s fabulous, isn’t it?” And they go, “Well actually, maybe that bit there could change and you know ooh”. But you have to get over that, because you’re too close to it. So there are sometimes when, you know, it can’t be changed because it’s perfect. But you know sometimes that you know you have to put it out to the forum and say “What do you think?” and you have to accept that.
ANDREW DENTON: You say you write very quickly. Have you actually had moments of epiphany, you know, when you sometimes hear about where a song is just fully formed just bang, there it is?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Oh absolutely…
ANDREW DENTON: I hate you…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: I would so love to be able to do that… [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: No, no I mean it… It’s just the way it happens with me with lyrics. It’s just, I don’t know, I mean it switched the musical switch on in me and that’s what I do really well…
ANDREW DENTON: Does it ever frustrate that you can’t write those lyrics for yourself that?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah I mean I’m a bit moon in June and it’s a good life and people have heard my lyrics and said “Good job you don’t write your own songs”. And there are some lyrics I haven’t been able to write to, I mean I don’t write… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Not everything he gives me, or anyone gives me, I can write to it. So when you actually get a lyric and you say “God this is fantastic”. Like Your Song was written in 20 minutes, I would say tops… and Daniel, the same…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Candle In The Wind, the same. Those sort of songs don’t come along very often…
ANDREW DENTON: You referred to yourself as the ‘Pete Townsend of piano’, I mean…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: And I get the strong sense that you’re frustrated with the piano as an instrument, even though it’s how you earn your living…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Who wouldn’t be? I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a nine foot plank. I mean you can’t hit it, you can’t kick it, you can, but you’d end up with an injury. I mean that’s why I used to stand on it. I used to lie under it. I used to decorate the piano so it didn’t look like a piano. You’re stuck there like a lump, I mean other rock n’ rollers, with a guitar, you can move around, across the stage…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You can’t communicate. I’m stuck in one position all the time. The piano, you can’t move it. And that’s for one one or two tours I did, I played an electric piano, so I faced the audience front and I’m always like this, I’ve got a bad neck because I’m always looking like that. And for a while I just played an electric piano, but it’s not the same…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: As playing a grand piano. It’s, you know, a fantastic instrument. But you are stationary, you know, you can’t fly through the air with the piano, it’s too heavy, you know. I’ve always envied Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend and Keith Richards, guitarists have that great ability to develop, you know, they can move anywhere they want. They can talk to the lead voc, they can walk out to the lead vocalist have a chat and they can, you know, on a bad night, they can really get frustrated and smash their guitar. I can’t, I tried to push my piano off the stage once… [LAUGHTER] And succeeded and the Ryvita keyboard which I used to play, I call it the Ryvita keyboard, I did chuck into the audience once as well. Because there are nights when you are so pissed off because you’re not having a good night, not with the audience might know, but you’re not having a good night and it happens. What can you do with a piano?
ANDREW DENTON: Did you…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You just…
ANDREW DENTON: Never consider doing a Jimi Hendrix and setting fire to it as you played it?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Not really, no. Oh I think the Insurer, it’s just a fire hazard… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Spec, spectacular
SIR ELTON JOHN: No, there’s nothing you can do, you can take an axe to it maybe but…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You know even so those pianos, it would be terrible to…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: To do that to a piano, because they are such beautiful instruments.
ANDREW DENTON: You’ve made a quid out of what you do. It just seems to me that if anyone’s in a position to have a piano invented that can also be used as some kind of a rock instrument, it’s you?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Don’t think we haven’t thought about it and tried…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: But, you know, if you want the sound to come out, I mean you can always, you know… I think some people, I know have a grand piano there and play there’s… Nothing inside, they are just an electric keyboard, they do it, but it’s not the same sound.
ANDREW DENTON: No.
SIR ELTON JOHN: You have to have a grand piano to get the sound you want. So this is, I’m not complaining, it’s not done me any harm, it’s just there are some, you do envy people sometimes… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Yes…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You like, you envy people that can run around the stage and sing and I get really awkward when I stand up and sing if I’m doing a charity thing or something, like what do I do I’m usually sitting safe behind, I’m very pleased I’m there now…
ANDREW DENTON: Yes…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Because I’m, you know, being 60 years of age, it’s nice to be able to hide behind the piano because, you know, you look at certain people of my age who are still jumping up and down and in the tight leopard skin and stuff like that and you think, I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore, or I’m glad you know I’ve envied you for so long, I don’t envy you anymore, because it’s hard thing to do… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I mean that a) you have to stay in shape and b) its kind of not dignified but it’s alright behind a piano.
ANDREW DENTON: Think how much of Mick Jagger’s life is spent exercising?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Oh Mick’s, I’m not talking about Mick.
ANDREW DENTON: No.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Because Mick is an exception to the rule, he gets older, older and fitter and fitter and and is as good as ever.
ANDREW DENTON: It’s a deal with the devil?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah.
ANDREW DENTON: It’s just occurred to me actually that as you said when you played piano, you must have only been able to relate to people like this…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah, yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: Even in conversation… [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: I know, it’s like hello, it’s a wonder I don’t walk around like this really. It’s like ‘The Elephant Man’, “Hello, good evening”. I do have it, you know, trouble I can’t sleep on my left side, I have to sleep on my right side.
ANDREW DENTON: You must have a whole team of chiropractors?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I don’t, no. I do have a great masseur in Las Vegas who works on all the dancers for when he’s working with Celine Dion…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And he’s great. He cracked my neck and you know. So I love going to Vegas and he can work on me. But no I’m afraid it’s like, it’s I’ve got that disease. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: You mentioned before having a bad night on stage. What’s that like?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Horrible, because you want…
ANDREW DENTON: Wh…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You want every night to be good…
ANDREW DENTON: What’s a bad night?
SIR ELTON JOHN: But the thing about being a live performer is that nothing’s ever the same, so that’s why I love live performing. You can go on some nights and think you’re going to be fantastic and it’s just ok and some nights you’re feeling not great and you’re tired, you’ve got a headache and you are brilliant. You just sit there some nights and then the piano, just everything you do is great.
ANDREW DENTON: I was talking to Jim Carrey a couple of years ago, who described coming on stage with you in Los Angeles…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And doing Rocket Man, yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: That’s right and he said “I walked on stage and you announced him and the whole place went off…”
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and he said “Now I know why all these rock stars are head cases…”
SIR ELTON JOHN: Right… [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: And he’s not? [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: Hello…
ANDREW DENTON: He was quite rational…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I love Jim, he’s fantastic. But if you’re a film actor you never get that instant…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Gratification that’s why a lot of actors now want to come to the theatre, want to do the theatre, because they do films and then they never go and sit through it. Absolutely, why would you want to do sit through something you’ve done six months or a year ago and and you’re just sitting there going “Oh my God, oh my God, are they liking it, are they liking it?” …Because an audience doesn’t really clap at a film. But in the theatre an actor can go and get his rocks off basically because he can get the instant gratification. He can get that. That’s what I love, the feedback from the audience, the human contact you get. And for a movie actor that’s hard. That’s why a lot of them are complete and utter fruit cakes because they are just, you know, they don’t get that, they’re an incredible artistic. I often watch, I mean I love cinema, I love watching films, but they, you know, it must be strange.
ANDREW DENTON: Do you get that sense of thrill that Jim Carrey described? I mean obviously it was new to him…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: But do you still get the hair standing up on the back of your neck?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Of course, I mean I just did a 60th birthday concert in Madison Square Garden, which I chose two years before because I’d done 59 shows there and I wanted to do my 60th at the venue that I love the most. I mean the Sydney Entertainment Centre is pretty amazing, I’ve done 40 there. But Madison Square Garden is an amazing place to play. I thought, I’ve done so many shows here, let’s do my 60th on my 60th. So we did that and we rehearsed a different set list, we did a lot more obscure numbers, we hired a choir, we had a cello player, we rehearsed a much longer show, it’s the longest show I’ve ever done, three hours, 25 minutes. And it worked from the word go and, you know, all very well saying I’m going to do this, but then you’ve got to pull it off and thank God it worked well and the audience worked. It was electric and yeah, I still had goose bumps. You have to have the fear of performing. You have to have the fear of doing new set lists and whatever. I don’t really get nervous before I go on stage because I know what I’m going to do. But I get the fear of “Are they going to like it?” And if you lose the fear in anything you do, then you might as well do something else. The fear of writing Billy Elliot, you know, “Is it going to be successful?” I want this to be so successful. We’ve got the right team of people. But I think I wrote probably the best music I’ve ever done for a Musical called Lestat, which came out in Broadway last year and got absolutely butchered and closed within three months, and was a very upsetting process. But at the end of the day basically it’s ‘Elton John Show flops…’
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: It’s not anybody else’s show flops. It’s my bloody show that flops and it was just one of those things. It didn’t work and not everything works, you have to accept that.
ANDREW DENTON: I’d like to talk about three people that absolutely intimately understand what you’ve just described and three different moments in your life, which is an earlier Madison Square Garden concert in ‘74 with John Lennon…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: His last public appearance. I notice on your latest album The Captain and Kid there’s the lyric 'I miss John Lennon’s laugh…'
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yep…
ANDREW DENTON: What do you remember of that night?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well talking of hair standing on the back of your neck, I’ve never ever heard applause for anyone in my life like that, never I mean to this day, the ovation that he got and the love that he got from the audience when he walked on stage and he was, you know, physically sick before he went on because he hadn’t done a Show since the Toronto Peace Concert. So he was out of the loop as far as playing live went and was terrified of playing in front of an audience, it was astonishing. I mean I think it seemed like ten minutes, the ovation probably was less than that, but it seemed to go on and on and on. And it just loosened him up and it made him very, very happy. It was a turning point in his life, it was the night he re-connected with Yoko Ono, it’s the reason that I’m Sean’s godfather because of my friendship with John and then that night was such, we went onto the Pierre Hotel afterwards and Yuri Gellar was there bending spoons. It was just a magical night and it was that I think reaffirmed for him because of all the crap that he was going through with the Government and the FBI and stuff, that people in New York which he’d chosen to be his home…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Absolutely loved him and then of course I was in Australia when I found out that he was been murdered. We were on a plane going from Brisbane to Melbourne and everyone was allowed to leave the plane except for the Elton John group and I thought “Oh God, something bad has happened”. And I just, I thought maybe my grandmother had died, because you know she was an older lady that lived at my house and I thought every time I go away is this the last time I’m going to see her, and I thought that might be. I knew someone had died, something had happened. But I wasn’t expecting that and nobody was expecting that and you know very, very tragic moment for me in my life, having gotten to know, I mean… After the year or so I spent with John on and off and becoming friends, when he re-connected with Yoko, I didn’t really see much more of him because he was happy. It was like his life was back together again. He wasn’t the raving drug addict that we know. We took a lot of drugs together, we misbehaved together. He’d find solace again and I think with Sean he’d maybe… and I talked about people making mistakes with their first kid. I don’t think he was the best father in the world to Julian…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I don’t think he wanted to make that mistake again with Sean.
ANDREW DENTON: He was special to you though, I remember he said something to you, “For Christ’s sake, take those glasses off and face the world”. He’d…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: Pushed you didn’t he?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah and he was very honest, he was very… I mean what you got with John was the truth. I mean that Liverpudlian great way of cutting through everything…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I mean it’s a very British thing and he never lost that British thing even though he was living in America. It was like, “What are you hiding behind? What are you doing that, you know? Why are you, you know, doing this? Why just take them off?” And, you know, he, I will tell you what he was like, he would take my parents to the Airport, he went with my parents to the Airport, he, you know…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: He took my, you know, when the band went there, he went to say goodbye to them. We went out with my parents to a restaurant. He was, he was just, you know. I was very wary of meeting John Lennon because I heard all, you know, the vicious, you know, the vicious tongue which was still there. And you know, I’ve got a vicious tongue as well, but you know, like we use it hopefully in an ironic way and a caustic way sometimes, but I never saw that side of him…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm. The second one was dancing The Charleston with Princess Di…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: How did you come to be dancing The Charleston?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I think it was Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday, and she was there, Windsor Castle. I was playing with Ray Cooper and it was terrifying because we came on stage and there was these, like ten gold chairs that were empty and we knew who they were there for. And you can’t play someone like that thinking “Is it too loud, are they going to like this, are they blah, blah, blah…?” And I played before the Royal family before but it was still a terrifying experience. But she was, I came down after the show and I’d gotten dressed and changed and I came down and she was all alone in this empty kind of ballroom and we chatted and you know we talked about the wedding that was coming up and all that bit. And then we went into the next room where the dance band was and we did The Charleston. Never done the Charleston before in my life. I’m not very good at that, I’d have to say. But you don’t refuse someone like Princess Diana. Well she wasn’t Princess Diana at that point. She said to me, “Do you want to dance?” It was an amazing evening, it was. Then I danced with the Queen to Rock Around the Clock…
ANDREW DENTON: Oh was she a good dancer?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm, she shifts around, she’s pretty good, she shifts around with her handbag on her arm and no actually it was Princess Anne who asked me to dance and [Laughs] then the Queen said “Can we join you?” Well who’s going to say “No, you can’t”. And that was one of the most surreal moments of my life…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Dancing at Windsor Castle to Rock Around the Clock with the Queen, doesn’t get much more surreal than that.
ANDREW DENTON: I know you and Princess Di went through a very close time and then the estrangement and then a close time again. The anniversary of her, well her birthday has come up, the anniversary of her death, 10th anniversary is soon…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: Will you be singing Goodbye English Rose? You’ve said you’ll only sing that at the request of the Prince’s. Is that something [talk together]?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I specifically would not like to sing it…
ANDREW DENTON: No…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I’ve got that message to Prince William and Prince Harry because I think you cannot re-create the past.
[FOOTAGE OF ELTON SINGING GOODBYE ENGLISH ROSE AT PRINCESS DIANA’S FUNERAL SERVICE]
SIR ELTON JOHN: They wanted to put on as a concert of remembrance, but a joyous concert. And I honestly think if I sung that it would bring the whole atmosphere down. It would re-create something that’s sad and this is supposed to be a day remembering the joyous things about her life and I really don’t think after singing it once that you can sing it again. I don’t want to sing a song about her dying…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I want to sing something joyous and uplifting and up tempo because I don’t think people want to hear that again. I think that was a special moment in time…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And it should stay like that.
ANDREW DENTON: What would you rather sing?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Ah I’d rather, oh I think we’re going to sing Are You Ready for Love?, Burn Down a Mission and finish with an up tempo song…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I think I’m going to sing Your Song as the opening song of the show for the Princes, which is a nice song to sing about their mother…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And then end the show with getting a choir, and we’ll just end with three fast numbers…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And end it on a high note and a joyous note. I just think it’s just too sombre to do that.
ANDREW DENTON: The third thing that I’d like to ask you about is the one with Elvis Presley in Maryland in… I think it was the year before he died or close to then.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah.
ANDREW DENTON: Now he was a man that was the first rock n roll record you heard…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm mm…
ANDREW DENTON: Turned your musical life on its head…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: But that was not really the man you met was it?
SIR ELTON JOHN: No, I mean Elvis Presley changed everyone’s life. I mean there would be no Beatles, there would be no Hendrix. There would be no Dylan. I mean, he just was the man who changed music without question. When they had a Rolling Stone poll about who was the most influential people in rock n roll, I think The Beatles were number one and I just said, you know, “What? No, Elvis was number one”. But without Elvis we would never have, groups would never have picked guitars. I know he was influenced and drew his influence from Gospel and Blues and Country Music and Black Soul music whatever. But he was ‘The King’ and he was the one that started it all. And so when I first saw him I was a little boy in a Barber Shop in Pennygreen. And I looked at an old Life magazine and there was a picture of him and I thought he was from Mars or something. And then that weekend my mum came home with Heartbreak Hotel and that changed my life. I saw him in Las Vegas. I mean he was fantastic at The Hilton. But the only time I ever met him was very briefly before he went on stage in Washington DC, a year before he died. And it was very sad and... But even though it was very sad, even on stage my mum was with me, my mum said, “Well he’s not going to be alive much longer, is he?” which is typical. No, she was sad, she was really sad… [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Because he was, that was her idol…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And my idol and… But even though he went through the motions and was not really there at the scene at the end of that that concert, there was still flashes of brilliance…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Even though he was hugely overweight and just mostly, when he actually sung a couple of lines it was magical. You don’t lose that magic, no matter how fucked up you are, you know, you just… If you’re brilliant, snatches of that brilliance will come through.
ANDREW DENTON: Did you see him as a measure of what you didn’t want to become?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well at that time I wasn’t going to be like that. But then of course I did go through the drug stages and end up a recluse in my own bedroom, you know, taking cocaine, so I’d kind of did become him. But in a way I became a drug addict and he was a drug addict…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: But the thing was, I still lived in England. If I’d have lived in England or Australia, the press wouldn’t let me get away with it, you know, because they’re very, very vitriolic and they’re very, very bitchy and they’re nasty. But having said that, I would rather live in a country that shot me down in flames for misbehaving than stay in a country where they revere anyone no matter what they’re doing, i.e. Michael Jackson…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: All that lot so… What happened to him, you forget he died when he was only 42, for Christ’s sake, when he died. I mean he was only 42.
ANDREW DENTON: I had forgotten that actually, it’s amazing now you say that.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah he was only 42, but he looked 62…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: And it’s one of the great tragedies, he was surrounded by a manager who just closeted him and ripped him off basically…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: He never had enough people around him. I mean I have people around me to tell me I was being an idiot and so I knew I was being an idiot. But I don’t think anybody actually said “Elvis, you can’t do that, you mustn’t do that”.
ANDREW DENTON: I think a difference between you and he too is he did become entirely reclusive whereas you lead, my memory of you… Very flamboyant…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah I’ve been Chairman of the Football Club. I’m always at, you know, if I come to Australia I’m always out on the Harbour, I’m always you know in the Galleries or whatever. I mean, going out to eat, going to see Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, I’m not a recluse. I don’t like, I have to say it, as I get older I, you know, I’ve been through all the openings and night clubs…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I don’t want to be there, I’m not a paparazzi opening of a thing. I don’t like going… I’ll go to to a film premier or a theatre thing if I’m involved in it or a friend is doing something or a charity that a friend of mine is supporting or promoting, I’ll do it. But I do it with gritted teeth because hang on, I’ve had that in my life, I prefer privacy. I don’t like being followed around the streets by paparazzi…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I hate it.
ANDREW DENTON: During that period when you were ah doing a lot of drugs and a lot of alcohol and leading a very big life…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm…
ANDREW DENTON: Um…
SIR ELTON JOHN: You see I still work when I was doing those things, that was the secret…
ANDREW DENTON: Oh no absolutely…
SIR ELTON JOHN: That was the secret. If I’d, you know, if I’d have been home just doing it…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I’d have been home just doing it. I’d be dead by now without question. But I still worked, I still made records, I still was creative and that saved me…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Ah and that process. Never, even though I was doing drugs and you know, didn’t feel like it half the time, I still did it because I wanted to, you know, I loved it. I still love performing even though I, you know, I performed sometimes and I shouldn’t have been. I was on drugs and I vowed that would never happen. But it did happen… but I still performed and I still made records and that saved my life.
ANDREW DENTON: I remember the the outrageous showmanship of that period…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: I remember the Donald Duck outfit which I…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well that was just a bit before that, the actual, I’ll tell you the height of it was the showmanship, was probably the tour I did with the orchestra when I came on beforehand , and you know the outfits were just beyond belief. I mean punk hair do’s and punk wig, yellow pink hair, that was, you know, soon after that it was, you know, that was a pretty low time, even though the orchestral shows were fantastic in Australia.
[FOOTAGE — ‘SATURDAY’ ELTON PERFORMANCE]
SIR ELTON JOHN: That wasn’t a good time for me. But the Donald Duck period, it was, you know, yeah that was just I wasn’t thinking about things then. See everything was done on instinct and the costumes and everything and, you know. You can tell it was done on instinct because I didn’t try the outfit out. Because when I put the bloody outfit on backstage I put my arm through the leg hole, the leg through the arm hole and when I actually sat down at the piano, the bum of the duck was so big I couldn’t play the piano, so it was totally and utterly done by instinct.
ANDREW DENTON: See I always wondered if that Donald Duck outfit was a Disney tribute or a cry for help and now I realise it was…
SIR ELTON JOHN: It was…
ANDREW DENTON: Something else.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Bob Mackie, my clothes, said “What about being Donald Duck?” I said, “Fabulous”. And then of course the next tour I did I was Minnie Mouse. I first met Sting dressed as Minnie Mouse backstage at the Forum, I’ll never forget it nor will he. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: What did he say?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I mean, Donald Duck was fine but then…Minnie Mouse, then that was too far…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: With the tail and everything, I was so embarrassed. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: You drew the line at Goofy?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm ah no [inaudible] Minnie was better.
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Minnie was better, but you know, then you had the tail and the shoes. It’s enough, forget it. But we, after Donald Duck… was the last kind of, we didn’t even think about it, you know, didn’t think.
ANDREW DENTON: You described getting sober as one of your greatest achievements and and a hard thing to do. It’s easy to be addicted, hard not to be. What changes when you sober up?
SIR ELTON JOHN: … I’ll say when I got sober I put a lot of work into it. You don’t just get sober by taking it light-heartedly. I mean I really was at the end of my tether and so I really needed to wise up and I went away for six weeks to a hospital in Chicago, which wasn’t a fancy treatment centre… I’m a great believer in boot camps. I’m not a great believer in, you know, I read about Malibu places with televisions and swimming pools. I’m sorry, I don’t get it, you know. You’re going there because you have a severe problem. When you have a severe problem like I had you didn’t know how to live a life properly, you have to start living learning how to live properly again. I didn’t know anything. Everyone did everything for me. And with drug addiction you become self centred, you become delusional. And I went to a very strict place, and I’m glad I did. And then when I took a year off and when I came out, took a year off in England, I had great after-care. I did what I was told, sometimes kicking and screaming, but I did what I was told because my way obviously hadn’t worked. And I put a lot of effort into it and for three years I was relentless doing what I was told. And, you know, going to a psychiatrist in Atlanta to find out why I drank in the first place, what was the reason I wanted to hide and run away, you know there must be a reason why you did that. And I did a lot of work on myself, and you know I got…
ANDREW DENTON: Did you find the reason?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Sorry?
ANDREW DENTON: Did you find the reason?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah I found reasons. I went to a woman psychiatrist which was brilliant, pointed out things to me, like that was so clear that I’d never even thought of before, you know. And things like, for example, she said “You don’t blame your father anymore, you don’t hate your father, you’ve done that in treatment, you know. You don’t hate, that’s in the past. You hate being Elton John because you can’t say no to anybody and your career is all encompassing and there’s no time for you. It’s all Elton all the time”. And I went “Oh God”, I thought, “God she’s right about that”. So what I’ve done since 1990 is learn how to function as a human being, putting a lot of work into it, loving every minute of it. You know I didn’t really have any bad times, I mean there were times obviously when you have blue days and everything. But you know, you realise that stuff, everyone has blue days. Just get over it, you know. And I really enjoyed every single minute of my sobriety as far as I’ve come a long way. And now I have a relationship with someone, I now have a loving relationship with someone, took me 43 years to find out how…
ANDREW DENTON: If you had not been sober, had not been cleaned up when you met David who’s now your…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: Partner…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Well it would never have worked.
ANDREW DENTON: Would you have seen him for what he is, you or…
SIR ELTON JOHN: No I took hostages in my relationship. I didn’t know how to have a relationship. …It was all about you have to, because I’m Elton, you have to fit in with my lifestyle. Not about I have to fit in with your lifestyle. When I met David I realised that he, well he had a job, he had a very, very good job, his own flat, his own car, it was a different kettle of fish, he was a grown up and if I was wanting to be in this relationship which I did, I was going to have to be grown up and realise that there are two in this relationship not Elton.
ANDREW DENTON: Did he make that clear to you?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Oh absolutely…
ANDREW DENTON: Yeah…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Absolutely, but I mean I by that time I realised it anyway, that was because I’ve done a lot of work on myself and I started to grow up. But I mean when you get to the age of 43 and you can’t work a washing machine... I wasn’t ashamed of being a drug addict, but I was ashamed to ask someone. I can’t work a washing machine. I couldn’t do anything for myself and that is a really pretty bad set of affairs…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: I came back to England, I lived on my own, the first time I had ever lived on my own ever, since I was a child, since I became Elton John. I always had someone, a flat mate or a family member or a staff member living with me. I didn’t, I got a dog from Battersea Dogs Home, Thomas and we got up at 6.30 every morning and I took him for a walk around the square and I enjoyed how to be on my own. But I had gotten so far out of being not normal that I wanted to have a certain bit of normality to actually function like people that can actually fend for yourself, I mean that’s disgraceful.
ANDREW DENTON: And so with so many clothes you had to be able to work a washing machine? [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: Exactly. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: It could have been a disaster? [LAUGHTER]
SIR ELTON JOHN: Exactly.
ANDREW DENTON: You mentioned before that you still have blue days and you know you had a history of, there are a couple of suicide attempts. There was some dark times at different times in your life…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm mm…
ANDREW DENTON: Do you like yourself more now?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Absolutely, but I still have blue days. I still have, you know, image problems… I don’t think that ever goes away. Body, I’ve always had, you know, the way I look. I do have blue days but then very few and far between and I know how to cope with them so much better. I have a person to help me cope with them and I don’t run away and lock the door anymore. I used to run away into the bedroom and lock the door. Do I like myself more? Absolutely, I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved since I’ve become sober, with the stuff I’ve done to re-appease for the sins that I committed when I was doing a lot of drugs and the waste of money and the waste of time and the waste of energy. I mean, yeah, there were times, there were fun times. But you know, there were also really dismal times and you know, an exorbitant amount of money was spent on rubbish, and putting up my nose and hanging around with the wrong people. And since I’ve done that and we live in a age of AIDS and being a homosexual guy, not being infected by AIDS or HIV was a big, you know, was a big thing for me. Thinking, well I’ve been through all this, I’ve come out of this. I’ve got to do something to make up for what I’ve done. It’s not guilt, it’s just human decency. I have no guilt over what I did as far, I have regrets, but I have no guilt. But I have an endless ambition to do something really positive every day of the week if possible.
ANDREW DENTON: It’s interesting, you wrote an article for the New Statesman earlier this year about gay prejudice…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm mm…
ANDREW DENTON: In different parts of the world and I noted that when you perform in Poland where quite a right wing…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah I said something in Poland…
ANDREW DENTON: You said something on stage and this, the administration actually attempted to shut down homosexuality and any public since…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Yeah…
ANDREW DENTON: That seems an uncharacteristically political thing for you to do on stage. What was that like for you?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I’m at a point in my life where I have to make a stand. I mean this was going on in Poland and I said it in front of a televised audience. I said, “Listen, I’m a gay man. I’ve come here. You people, you’ve applauded me and you know you have to be more tolerant. Well you know we’re not the enemy”. If we’re living in the 21st century and people are still worried about homosexuality being evil, when the Catholic Church has covered child molestation for the last 25 years and done nothing about it, then we live in a funny society. I just don’t get it and the older I get, I just don’t get what’s going on in the world, the anger towards people that don’t deserve anger. When there’s not enough focus on people like Robert Mugabe… To deserve to be gotten out of the way and gotten rid of, it’s just we live in a crazy world. I’ve become very disillusion by it. But I have to speak out. I have to speak my mind because as a gay man now I have a responsibility to. I sat back too long. I mean when Act Up were going in and trying to change the face of AIDS awareness in America because nobody else was doing it, I sat back and did nothing…
ANDREW DENTON: And why was that? You just didn’t know how to be committed or…?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I don’t know…
ANDREW DENTON: Or you were self-involved?
SIR ELTON JOHN: I just, I don’t know why I didn’t do anything. I just look back and question myself. Well why didn’t you do something more positive then? I mean, I did the odd record of… I mean friends of mine were dying right, left and centre of AIDS and the government in America was doing nothing with AIDS. You know, we live in a fantastic world which has somehow become so hateful and so divisive and it’s all fuelled by religion and that makes me very sad because, you know, I’m not an irreligious person and I do have my beliefs. And the older I get the more I see a need for love and tolerance and forgiveness and let’s get on with each other…we need peace more in our time now than we ever needed it.
ANDREW DENTON: It’s good to see you so passionate though, because it’s very easy and certainly with your level of success, but also as you get older to go it someone else’s problem.
SIR ELTON JOHN: … I mean it’s very hard for me to bite my tongue now… And I said in an interview with Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters, “I think religion should be banned”. I didn’t really. What I meant to say, what I told him really, it was like I think religious leaders need to take a good look at themselves and take the stand that they’re taking in this day and age in the 21st century, for Christ’s sake, this is not the Middle Ages. Being hateful towards gay people is evil, you know. I’m afraid this has come basically from the religious right in America…
ANDREW DENTON: Mm…
SIR ELTON JOHN: We’ve seen the, you know, homosexual is something that can be… altered and be dealt with and you can be cured. And it’s like, I’m very happy being who I am. I’m a good person. I love being who I am. I just happen to be gay. I’m a very good person. I give back. I’ve made mistakes. I love other people. I want the world to be a positive place. Stop hating me, stop hating me, stop treating me like some fucking thing from Mars, I’m a human being. I do better things in my life than you do and all you can do is be hateful, hateful, hateful, I’m sick of it.
ANDREW DENTON: Last question, your Billy Elliot is coming to Australia and you’re going to come over as well a bit later…
SIR ELTON JOHN: Mm mm…
ANDREW DENTON: I assume you will be going to see it and I understand that pretty much every time you see it, you still shed a tear. Is that right?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Oh absolutely, you can’t fail to be moved. It’s human and, you know, that’s the thing about the show. I’m so looking forward to coming. I’m going to be doing some solo shows in Australia to coincide especially with the opening of Billy. And I know it’s going to be good good in Australia, because I think the Australians have the same ethics that we British have. They have the same sense of humour. They’re a very honest race of people, and I, you know, I think it will do really well. Hope so anyway.
ANDREW DENTON: So we can look forward to seeing you as a big gooey lump somewhere on the side of the stage?
SIR ELTON JOHN: Oh yeah, oh dear. I’m a big lump anyway. [LAUGHTER]
ANDREW DENTON: Elton John, thanks very much.
SIR ELTON JOHN: Thanks.
ANDREW DENTON: It’s been a pleasure.
From the
Enough Rope website, July 9
2007
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Cornflakes & Classics 2007