For over 50 years, Bernie Taupin and Elton John have loved some of the fruitful and enduring partnerships in pop historical past. And whereas the latter artist could be the extra flamboyant and fame-seeking of the pair, it’s Taupin who’s written the phrases all of us sing alongside to once we cue up “Your Tune,” “Rocket Man,” or “Tiny Dancer.”
Now, Taupin, 73, has turned his pen inward. On Tuesday, the legendary lyricist launched Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me, a memoir that doesn’t skimp on wild rockstar revelations or touching tales of friendship and self-discovery. We meet Taupin as a curious boy rising up in Northern England, and observe alongside as he meets John and turns into a world star in his personal proper—albeit one who prefers to face offstage (besides when John Lennon drags him into the highlight; extra on that later).
Scattershot is a completely entertaining and enlightening learn, particularly main as much as Taupin’s long-deserved induction into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame later this 12 months. However when you simply can’t wait, see beneath for a sampling of the e-book’s greatest bits, together with Taupin’s embarrassing second with Princess Margaret, his recollection of Elton’s first marriage, and the actual inspiration behind “Candle within the Wind” (it’s not Marilyn).
Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me.
Amazon
He undoubtedly faked his manner into the music business.
Because the legend goes, Taupin’s decades-long collaboration with John (whom he refers to as Reg within the e-book’s early chapters, since John was nonetheless going by his start identify, Reggie Dwight, on the time) started by fluke in 1967, after they each responded to an commercial searching for songwriters. Taupin describes the letter he despatched in response to the advert as “unbelievable codswallop,” on condition that he had no music expertise to talk of.
“Not sure as to what songwriting consisted of, I lined my incompetence by the use of flowery purple prose. It was one thing about my work having some likelihood in being the premise for a brand new form of beat poetry. The way it wasn’t tossed within the bin after a very good chuckle is anybody’s guess.”
He additionally takes the chance to clear up a few misconceptions in regards to the well-known advert story: “Let’s bypass all of the baloney and dispel myths right here. Legend has it that I used to be reticent to reply the advert and my mom finally mailed my submission (I simply forgot, OK?), and Ray randomly pulled my package deal of lyrics from a pile of contenders and handed them to Reg. What number of lyricists do you truthfully suppose responded to the commercial? Er, me, that’s what number of!”
He rejected an early move from Elton.
Taupin writes gracefully about declining a flirtatious move from John lengthy earlier than they’d made it huge.
“It was fairly early on that Reg examined the waters. We had been inseparable, joined on the hip, and utterly the inhabitants of our personal world. So it was solely pure that he would add to the confusion that will need to have been raging in his psyche by inserting his hand on my thigh. This was executed nearly clinically, as if he felt it crucial, however on the similar time eager to get it over with. Elton was nonetheless a good distance from popping out, and even farther from understanding it, the consummation of his chosen path being a number of years from this level. This harmless strategy was executed with zero aggression and lacked something of a predatory nature. If something, I believe it made me giggle. It was simply deflected and instantly understood.”
Taupin goes on to foretell that had he reciprocated, it will have “spelled catastrophe” for each their friendship and their working relationship, and that a few of their enduring classics would have by no means occurred.
Elton John with lyricist Bernie Taupin shortly after they signed contracts with Dick James Music in 1968.
Alamy
Elton’s first marriage resulted in a hilarious intervention (and not an precise suicide try).
Within the late ’60s, John obtained engaged to a girl named Linda Woodrow, and, in accordance with Taupin, “It was extraordinary to look at him strategy a conventional heterosexual dance. I actually don’t suppose he knew what hit him and was simply swept up within the accepted normality of all of it.”
The story of John’s supposed suicide try amid his sad relationship with Woodrow has been instructed earlier than, however Taupin clears issues up by writing about what actually occurred.
“All of it modified with an intervention after Elton, in a staged cry for assist, opened all of the home windows, caught his head within the fuel oven, and awaited a dramatic response. Maybe as a result of unorthodox nature of his try, fuel on low and an embroidered pillow to relaxation his head on, sympathy was not forthcoming. Clearly not the response he craved, I laughed out loud whereas Linda merely regarded down at him, rolled her eyes, and walked out.”
Taupin additionally acknowledges that a lot has been chronicled about John’s subsequent “intervention,” however, he says, “In actuality it was only a drunken night that modified all the pieces… The fuel oven episode, ludicrous because it appeared on the floor, was certainly a name to arms… On the fruits of the night, after a number of stops, we staggered into the Bag O’Nails, a rock star habitat within the coronary heart of Soho. It was right here that [Long John] Baldry delivered the homosexual equal of the Gettysburg Handle. Maybe not fairly so eloquent and fueled by brandy relatively than political zeal, it nonetheless stirred its directee into his nice awakening.”
They obtained dwelling, and, “Instantly, I ducked for canopy whereas Elton, fueled by alcohol but slapped sober by the truth of all of it, sailed forth to manage Linda’s Waterloo. It was, in fact, ugly.”
Elton John and Bernie Taupin attend the photocall for “Rocketman” in the course of the 72nd annual Cannes Movie Pageant on Might 16, 2019 in Cannes, France.
Samir Hussein / Getty
The notorious Troubadour gig didn’t flip them into in a single day sensations.
When John and Taupin ventured for the primary time to Los Angeles for the singer’s historic gig on the Troubadour, Taupin had simply turned 20. He and John had been nonetheless residing in John’s mom’s condominium on the time, and Taupin had by no means stayed in a lodge and even used a bathe earlier than. He writes innocently of their introduction to L.A., together with their document label sending them to Disneyland, and dispels any notions of the Troubadour gig turning them into in a single day stars.
“A lot has been written about Elton’s debut on the Troubadour that I’m loath to repeat the apparent. The celeb turnout has been touted, however in all honesty I can’t recollect it being extreme,” he writes. “Within the years following, if everybody who claims to have been current throughout that week was truly there, we might have performed Dodger Stadium as a substitute of ready till 1975.”
He and Kris Kristofferson as soon as propped up a drunk John Prine on dwell TV.
In a single amusing story, Taupin remembers going out to a London bar known as the Speakeasy in 1972, the place he met up with Kristofferson and a younger John Prine. Prine was set to seem that night on the late-night dwell studio TV present The Outdated Gray Whistle Take a look at, however had had manner an excessive amount of to drink, so it was as much as Taupin and Kristofferson to assist the then-newcomer.
“The best way I keep in mind it’s that there was black espresso and quite a lot of retaining him sandwiched upright between the 2 of us,” Taupin writes. “Kris tuned his guitar, caught it in his palms, and we maneuvered him into the studio. By the point he’d regained a little bit extra confidence in his equilibrium, and offering he remained stationary, there was much less chance of him pitching ahead. It was the falling backward that involved us. In an effort to avert this, it was determined we must always stay with him within the studio. Crouched out of digicam sight, like Elvis on Ed Sullivan, he was shot from the waist up as we, at intervals, positioned reassuring palms on his ass to maintain him vertical. He made it via surprisingly properly, and with enterprise performed we repaired to the Speakeasy the place any additional recollection of the night ends.”
He completely botched an animated movie based mostly on Captain Implausible and the Brown Filth Cowboy—however ended up writing a serious Elton hit as a substitute.
After the discharge of John’s chart-topping ninth studio album, Captain Implausible and the Brown Filth Cowboy, Taupin and illustrator Alan Aldridge—who’d made all of the album’s authentic paintings—had been dispatched to Barbados by Common Footage to put in writing a script for a proposed animated film based mostly off the LP. Taupin remembers staying in a totally staffed oceanfront villa after which partying the complete time—apart from one productive burst that resulted in successful tune.
“We each proceeded to get no work executed in any respect. We simply couldn’t focus,” he writes. “In reality in the complete time, the one worthwhile second got here when Elton known as me from Toronto one night to play me a backing monitor he’d simply reduce with the band. Half reduce myself by this level within the day, the afternoon’s poolside cocktails having muddied my brainwaves, I listened and took notice. Elton was in want of a lyric that could possibly be executed as a duet. I listened, instructed him I’d give it a shot, hung up, and caught my head within the ice bucket. In ten minutes, I’d thrown one thing collectively that was simplistic with out being overly trite, and that’s how ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Coronary heart’ took place… Not dangerous for ten minutes of drunken scribbling.”
He spills the tea on so many celebrities.
As with every correct rock memoir, Taupin has loads of tales and anecdotes involving the wealthy and well-known. He remembers, for instance, Bob Dylan being “utterly obsessed” with the potential for successful an Oscar for a tune he wrote for Divine Secrets and techniques of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (which didn’t occur); getting viciously excessive with Bob Marley and John Lennon in West Hollywood; punching John Belushi after the comic insulted his girlfriend; and studying about Stevie Surprise’s get together trick involving a $20 invoice: “He’d stand subsequent to you and say, ‘I believe you dropped a Jackson’ and, in fact, one can be there proper between your toes.”
In a single significantly amusing slight, he writes of Andy Warhol: “Sadly, whereas Warhol’s work was groundbreaking and charming, his character, most actually, was not. Speaking to Andy was like conversing with an eight-year-old woman… If boring is how he wished to be perceived, he got here via with flying colours.”
He tried to alleviate John Lennon’s nerves earlier than performing with Elton at MSG.
Taupin remembers that in 1974, John Lennon misplaced a guess to John that subsequently “discovered the previous Beatle within the unavoidable place of getting to hitch Mr. Large Glasses on stage eight days therefore at Madison Sq. Backyard.”
Quick-forwarding to that fateful night time, Taupin remembers of Lennon: “It’s Thanksgiving night time, November 28, and the truth of performing dwell after such a prolonged absence from the stage has our hero purging his nerves into the porcelain throne… As countdown turns into inevitable, his insecurities resurface and he relapses right into a state of faltering paranoia, his black Telecaster shaking in his palms. I do know this as a result of I’m standing subsequent to him within the wings, able to propel him bodily onto the stage ought to he e-book out and try a runner. As Elton begins his introduction, John begins to plead. ‘It’s important to come out with me.’”
In fact, Lennon’s efficiency with John was deemed a complete triumph, and the ex-Beatle ended up dragging the spotlight-resistant Taupin out onstage for the encore: “Adrenaline pumping and together with his arm wrapped round my submissive shoulders, I used to be extracted from the wings and dragged earlier than the massed and mesmerized crowd.”
He as soon as cut up his pants in entrance of Princess Margaret.
Recalling a dinner he attended at Kensington Palace, Taupin writes about ready in line to greet the princess whereas carrying a “well-tailored however comfortable white velvet go well with that screamed pop star stylish.” Sadly, the poshness ended there.
“You possibly can think about my shock to witness the nicotine-addicted princess, Countess of Snowdon, and second in line to the throne, flip to the closest footman obtainable and proclaim in a voice loud sufficient to chop glass, ‘The place are my fucking Winstons?’ This unrefined demand occurred to coordinate itself to the precise second of my introduction which, as destiny would have it, included me bowing low and splitting my pants from crotch to shirttail.”
Princess Margaret, Taupin writes, “homed in on my trend malfunction like a buzzard on a intestine wagon. ‘Did now we have an accident?’ she inquired dryly.’”
Finally, the princess obtained one in every of her assistants to stitch his trousers again collectively whereas he waited in Margaret’s non-public research whereas carrying a bathrobe and attempting to withstand the temptation to snoop round.
He by no means wished to put in writing “Candle within the Wind” about Marilyn Monroe.
Taupin doesn’t recall the place he wrote the lyrics to the enduring tune “Candle within the Wind,” which opens with the road, “Goodbye, Norma Jean,” however he does know one factor: “Marilyn Monroe wasn’t my first selection.”
Taupin says the tune’s inspiration got here from the 1961 drama The Misfits, which starred Clark Gable, Monroe, and Montgomery Clift. He says, “Clift was my first selection for ‘Candle within the Wind’ just because he was extra interesting to me… After some consideration, although, I switched gears. It wasn’t a tough determination. I simply determined that Marilyn was extra iconically recognizable. Extra sympathetic within the minds of the lots, she was inconsolably susceptible, the right metaphor for the tune’s title, a fragile flame flickering away into immortality.”
He added: “To be trustworthy, I’d most popular to eulogize somebody I had extra empathy for, however then that may little question have diminished the commerciality of the tune and finally the lyrical agenda. This, in flip, might have hijacked the melody, which is in my thoughts one in every of Elton’s most interesting. Am I looking for shock worth by overemphasizing my indifference to Marilyn Monroe? May very well be, however the celluloid nirvana she inhabits was by no means my factor.”
He regrets the Cher dig in “Snow Queen.”
Taupin insists his relationship with Cher by no means amounted to something romantic. He concedes that they might have flirted and he could have had a crush on her, and whereas he doesn’t recall a falling-out together with her, “the proof of some imagined slight nonetheless lives on in a disparaging lyric” in John’s tune “Snow Queen.”
“‘Snow Queen’ wasn’t an excellent tune, and it wasn’t an excellent thought,” Taupin writes. “There was no actual goal for it, the lyric portraying a model of Cher that didn’t exist. I’m nonetheless embarrassed by it now, ‘Arms are unfold like icicles.’ It wasn’t warranted, and though each Elton and I apologized for it way back, it was nonetheless dumb, dumb, dumb.”
He nearly wrote the Flashdance theme tune—however obtained too creeped out by one of many film’s producers.
As Taupin tells it, he was requested by a Paramount exec about presumably writing some lyrics for a brand new film known as Flashdance that was being produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. He went to see a tough reduce of the movie and “the entire thing was clumsy and manipulative, soft-core porn masquerading as a fairy story whereas pandering to a demographic of sexy teenagers and lecherous middle-aged males. Enter Don Simpson.”
“It was as apparent because the nostril in your face that he was useless, egotistical, and brash,” Taupin writes of the producer. “He may have been the crudest man I’ve ever met. Every little thing that got here out of his mouth was both sexual innuendo or simply blatant filth. It was unsettling sufficient to see him so aroused by the feminine actors, however this doubled together with his observations as to their anatomy and sexual capabilities was nauseating.”
Taupin finally took a stab at a tune for movie, “however it was half-hearted,” and the studio ended up going with a lyric by Keith Forsey and Irene Cara, whose “Flashdance…What A Feeling” went on to a win a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Golden Globe. “However I’m undecided even that may have been value working into Don Simpson once more,” Taupin says.
British composer Bernie Taupin (L) and British musician Elton John pose within the press room with the award for Greatest Authentic Tune – Movement Image in the course of the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards on January 5, 2020, at The Beverly Hilton lodge in Beverly Hills, California.
Frederic J. Brown / Getty
He clears up the meanings behind loads of hit songs… form of.
Taupin repeatedly makes it clear in Scattershot that he loves when listeners have their very own concepts and notions about what his lyrics are about. Nevertheless, he does clear up the next: “Madman Throughout the Water” will not be about Richard Nixon; he didn’t write “I’m Going to be a Teenage Idol” about British glam rock star Marc Bolan; and “Idol” wasn’t written about Elvis Presley.
So far as the precise meanings behind a few of his songs: He wrote “Empty Backyard” whereas confining himself to his workplace for 2 days after John Lennon’s assassination; “Two Rooms on the Finish of the World” was “an olive department” about him and John reuniting after their momentary cut up; and “Tiny Dancer” is a tune “inhabited by fragments of a handful of LA females: a Whisky a Go Go waitress, a lady who labored in a Beverly Hills shoe retailer, and a hitchhiker in cutoffs on Pacific Coast Freeway.”
And he wrote “I’m Nonetheless Standing” about his ex-girlfriend, and not Elton’s rehabilitation.
Taupin has hinted about as a lot over time, however “I’m Nonetheless Standing” was written within the aftermath of his breakup with Loree Rodkin, who’d beforehand dated Don Henley of the Eagles and had impressed the band’s “Wasted Time” and components of “Resort California.”
“Did I write a tune about it? Sure, in one thing I’m ashamed to say is fired up with extra venom than ‘Resort California,’” Taupin writes of his and Rodkin’s cut up. “I’ll fess up that ‘I’m Nonetheless Standing,’ a tune that has turn into synonymous as an anthem for Elton’s steely quest for survival (and fairly rightfully so), was initially written in response to Loree’s and my failed love in a time of impossibilities. My train in bittersweet black humor was actually one thing she didn’t deserve given my earlier disasters. What she did get out of each mine and Don’s relationships had been three good songs. As they are saying, all’s properly that ends properly, and Loree and I are actually the perfect of pals, as are Don and I.”
He defends the timeless phenomenon that’s “We Constructed This Metropolis.”
The chart-topping smash “We Constructed This Metropolis”—written by Taupin and Martin Web page in 1985 for the band Starship—is among the most divisive pop songs in historical past, which Taupin is properly conscious of. “Derided by Blender journal as ‘essentially the most awesomely dangerous tune of all time’ (a praise I put on as a badge of honor), it has refused to die, steamrolling on lengthy after Blender journal bit the mud,” the lyricist writes.
He then goes on to rail towards Grace Slick, who shares lead vocal duties on the tune with Mickey Thomas: “Even Grace Slick selected to trash speak it as soon as she was certain the success it afforded her group had dissipated. In later years she even took time to step up the warmth by trashing the absurdity of the lyrics, which coming from somebody whose earlier profession included its personal quota of songs riddled with unfathomable mumbo jumbo ought to get her equal billing in tacky detritus. While you spend the most effective a part of your grownup life portray photos of white rabbits as a result of it references the one tune of yours that anybody remembers, I wouldn’t go knocking one which persons are doing to recollect lengthy after the rabbit’s useless.”
He continues: “Do I just like the tune? It’s a moot level. If I hadn’t written it, no, however I did, so I stand by it.”
