![]() If he wants me to, I will, but it’s not on my bucket list. With this farewell tour Elton’s doing, can you imagine taking a bow with him at the last show? I mean, this is a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. There are a lot of funny stories in Elton’s book. Just go out there and enjoy it.” And he was fine. I can’t lead you onstage - you’re not Stevie Wonder. The guy was throwing up in a bucket in the dressing room. He’d never call me Bernie.Įlton tells a funny story in his memoir, “Me,” about John Lennon trying to get you to come onstage with him in 1974, when he was the guest star at Elton’s Madison Square Garden show. If I’d thought about it early in my life, I might have changed it so something cooler, like Bono or the Edge.ĭo you prefer that people call you Taupin?Ī lot of people do. “Bernie” is really not a very rock ‘n’ roll name. Your website refers to you mainly as “Taupin.” Do you hate your first name? That’s the million-dollar question with me. I’ve created some, hopefully, captivating pop music in my life, but I don’t listen to pop music. I’ve been in the room when my younger children have watched her on TV, but it doesn’t compute. I don’t think I could name one Taylor Swift song. The best record of last year was the Tom Russell record, which nobody even knows about. Brandi Carlile, Gretchen Peters, Brandy Clark, who’s a great writer. Maren Morris has an incredible melodic sensibility. I think women are totally ruling right now. I’ve been in the studio during pretty much every album we’ve made.Īre there any young songwriters you like? I’m always there when we record, to help tinker with songs, if there’s a hiccup in it. You still maintain that solidarity but you have to create your own individual lives, which we did. When we started writing together, we were sharing a room at his mother’s apartment in Northwood Hills.īut then there’s a thing called growing up. You have to remember, we were so young when we started out - I was 17 years old - and we were joined at the hip. How often were you in the studio with him or on the road for a tour? We’ve probably written a lot of crap, but the majority is stuff I’m immensely proud of. ![]() ![]() We’ve been doing it for 53 years, almost. Once you give the lyrics to Elton, you don’t have much control over what the song turns into, which is unusual. So in the long run, everybody made the right decisions, except me. If we’d gone in the direction I’d imagined, it might have fallen flat. Then I heard the finished version and I got it. I can’t remember if I said to Elton, in my notes, how I envisaged the lyric to be treated, but when he sent me the demo, I was perplexed, because he’d gone in a totally different direction. I, probably not in my best judgment, imagined a slower, waltz-like, reflective melody, sort of like Tom Waits’ “Hold On.” When I was approached about doing a song for the credits of the film, it was obvious that the song had to have a redemptive quality to it. With “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” which has a Motown feel to it, did you have that sound in mind when you wrote the lyrics? His son was upset by the portrayal, and for that, I apologize.Ī lot of cowriters work side by side but you and Elton work separately. In the movie, he’s a sort of East End, cigar-chomping street tough, when in fact Dick never would have used a cuss word and regarded himself as honest - although some of his business practices were very Dickensian. The only character that was a million miles from the person he actually was is Dick James. Is there anyone you felt the movie treated unfairly? And I don’t want to sound like an acceptance speech, but everybody involved with this film has been delightful. Imagine if it had bombed, and we had to go through the next year promoting a film that nobody liked. When we premiered the movie at the Cannes Film Festival, it got an incredible reaction. With “Rocketman,” you’ve been more public than ever before. ![]() You mentioned doing a lot of glad-handing, and you’re known as a guy who doesn’t like the promotional part of the music business. In an interview punctuated by polite spasms of coughing, the California-based writer, who will turn 70 in May, discussed his early youthful fondness for dirty songs, his puzzling lyrics to “We Built This City” and the time he disappointed John Lennon. ![]()
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