Elton John
Appearances
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, of course. Liberace came to England and there was a columnist in the Daily Mirror who said he was gay, a guy called Cassandra. Well, that was his pseudonym. And Liberace sued and won. And he said, I'm not gay. And he won the libel case. When I was young and I watched the Liberace show or any show that came from America that was musical – It was pure magic.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
The Americans did things on a bigger scale. Liberace, because he played the piano, I was very much interested in. He was a good pianist, but he was not a great pianist. And I was enchanted by him and I loved him. You know, his dialogue with the audience was very, very funny, especially when he did live shows. And I did get to meet him.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I did the Royal Variety Show with him in London at the London Palladium. And I planned my two big outfits and I thought, well, Liberace, I've got to do something special. So I had two fabulous lurex suits made in red, white and blue. And they were hanging up, you know, very proudly in the dressing room. And then Lee, who he liked to be called Liberace, Lee walked in with trunk after trunk.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
He wore that outfit with the light bulbs in it. And, you know, so my attempt to, you know, go one up on Liberace failed absolutely miserably. But he was so charming and so lovely and very, very funny and very, very intelligent. And he was a huge influence on me. It's like he was being who he was. He wasn't publicly out. He didn't give a flying monkeys about what he was wearing.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
He just went for it. And that was who he was. And that, of course, influenced me when I started wearing the clothes and, you know, subconsciously must have, you know, if you're stuck at a piano and you're not a lead guitarist or lead vocalist, you're kind of at a nine foot plank and you have to. do something about it.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
So my thing was to leap on the piano, do handstand and wear clothes that would attract attention to me because that's the focus for two and a half hours or two hours. I'm not walking around the stage. I'm not moving. So he gave me that idea probably subconsciously because before then I'd never seen anyone dressed like that.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, all my stuff has been done with firmly tongue-in-cheek. I wasn't a heartthrob David Bowie or Mick Jagger or Rod Stewart in those days. I was Elton at the piano. And, you know, I just had to turn the attention onto something comedic or even more outrageous than it was. Of course, with those kind of things, as is my want in everything I do, I took it too far. And it, you know, became…
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
In the beginning, it was natural. I didn't think about it. It was like, oh, yeah, let's do this, let's do that. And then it became like, oh, what am I going to do next? And that's the dangerous side. It's like you think about it too much. In the end, it became tired and it became too much. And it became less fun. I think a lot of the critics, the costumes...
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
put people off me they weren't listening to the music as more or less looking at what I was wearing I was singing great songs but I was also wearing you know a giant chicken outfit at the time and being helped on stage by Mr. Universe on his shoulders so you know anything like that it was you know it was all down to me it was my fault if anything you know if they didn't like what I was wearing then I couldn't really do much about it but you know I had to take responsibility for it
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
It lights up. You can show films on it. You can show video. It was a suggestion from Yamaha, who made my piano, said, you know, we're coming up with an idea for you. And I You know, the first show I did in Las Vegas was a red piano. I had a red piano. And then we had to think, well, if we're going to go back, what can we do?
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And they came up with this idea before we ever thought of going back to Vegas. And I thought, well, if I go back to Vegas, this sounds like a great idea. You know, and it's, I introduced, the piano has a name. She's named Blossom after Blossom Deary.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, he said, they were grabbing the microphone. He said, if you break my microphone, you'll pay me 50 pounds. And I'm going, oh, John, that's not the way to handle this situation.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Because I got to this point where after Rocketman came out, which was my first really big hit, about two years into my career after your song. I got screaming girls at some of my shows. And I just thought that was rather funny because I wasn't David Bowie and I wasn't Rod Stewart and I wasn't Mark Bolan and I wasn't Mick Jagger. But I was at the piano and I got screaming girls.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Luckily, they couldn't reach my microphone because I was playing the piano. You accepted it and you loved it and you just went along with it. I think John didn't know how to cope with it. He just really didn't know how to cope. For all his life, he'd been playing in clubs, playing the blues, and suddenly girls, young girls were screaming at him.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And I just think, you know, he just never knew how to handle that.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, I didn't worry about it. It's like, well, I'm not interested and you're not. You're interested, but I'm not. But it was very sweet and they were very – I've still got a lot of – most of my audience is a lot of women as well, a lot of girls and a lot of females. And I'm very grateful for that.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I hadn't. And I just thought, oh, my God. I remember where it was at the club. It was in Carnaby Street. And that's when Bernie and I came home that night and we were so drunk and I told Linda, the girl I was going to marry, that I wasn't going to marry her anymore because I'd never had a sexual experience. I didn't know anything about sex. I'd never had a sexual experience at all.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I didn't have a sex till I was 23, which was portrayed in Rocketman. That was the first time. I didn't know anything about it. I presumed that you had to marry a girl because that was the way things were done. But I did... I didn't have sexual feelings for Bernie. I just had great love for Bernie. And I wanted to cuddle him and I wanted to give him a hug. I didn't want to go to bed with him.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
But I did love him more than I did love Linda. And when he said that, I suddenly start thinking... Oh, because I had no one in my family who was gay. I had no yardstick to measure my gayness on. Except I worked for Long John Baldy for so long. And he was so, when I look back now, he was so outrageous. And I didn't know anything, didn't think he was gay. I didn't know about it. I was so naive.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
So that night, thank God, the epiphany came that night. And I went home and, you know, dodged the bullet, as it were. But I still didn't have sex for a couple of years, two or three years later.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, you know, a lot of rock musicians go into rock music to pull girls. That's one of the big attractions. Well, we can play on stage and we can flirt with the girls and then we can go backstage and then we can have them, we can take them home and we can have sex with them. That was never my motive. I was just wanting to play music. Sex wasn't anything I was thinking about.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I was just wanting to play music. I was so obsessed with music, nothing entered my head apart from that.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Well, I was getting fed up with Long John Baldy playing to cabaret people who were eating chicken and chips and not caring about the music. And I thought, I didn't become a musician for this. Maybe I'd written a couple of songs for Bluesology that were recorded, and the lyrics were awful, but I wrote the melody. And this audition for Liberty Records was just, I thought...
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Maybe I can be a songwriter. I had no intentions of being an Elton John superstar or whatever. I just thought maybe I can write music. I went to the audition. I said, I do sing, but I don't sing much. But I can write songs, but I'm a terrible lyricist. And hence, he gave me the envelope, which was, you know, could have been any envelope.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And it was Bernie's lyrics, which I read on the train going home. I didn't have any... ambitions at that time to become someone who made their own records and became a star, I just thought, well, maybe if I leave the band, I can become a songwriter. And that would be fun. And I'm still in the music business. So it was just part of the process of the serendipity that happened to me that...
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
If I hadn't have gone to that meeting, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. And then you look back and think, how did I have the courage to go to that meeting when I was chubby, I had no self-esteem, I was shy, but anything was better than playing to people who were eating chicken and chips while you were playing.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
It was because in my teenage years, I wasn't allowed to wear anything fashionable at all. No pointy-toed shoes, no chiseled-toed shoes, no fashionable coats. So when I actually left home… And started, you know, I think that was the leap, leaving home and beginning to earn my own wage and keeping myself and supporting myself. But I decided to live my teenage years in my 20s.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And, you know, I made up for lost time pretty quickly. And I just, I went hell for leather for it. And I just had such a great time because I was cocooned in boring clothes.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
That was my mother who did that. My father and my mother should never have gotten married. They got married very quickly after the war, which a lot of people did. They were totally unsuited to each other. My dad was in the Air Force and was a way a lot. My mom worked very, very hard in shops and also later in life at the Royal Air Force as well.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And I was the product of – I don't know how many times they must have had sex. I don't think they must have had sex very often but I was the product of their marriage. The 50s was an incredibly tough time to grow up in. It was after the war. It was very conservative.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
So if you were in a marriage and you wanted to get out of it, it was very tough to get out of it because divorce was frowned on socially. I can remember my Uncle Red coming when my parents were thinking of getting divorced saying, you can't get divorced. What will the next door neighbors say? That was what it was like. I knew nothing about sex, nothing. I was seen and not heard.
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Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Children were seen and not heard. I loved – I had the – wonderful upbringing with my grandmother. And my mother could be so much fun, but she was mercurial. And they were like oil and water, the two of them. The nice thing about it is that they got, when they did get divorced and my mother found Fred and my dad found Edna, is that they found the love of their lives. And that I'm very happy about.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
But the bit in between was hard to take because I dreaded my dad coming home because it would be a row immediately. And then I would retreat to my room You know, look at my books, look at my records, look at my toys. And funnily enough, I mean, I just I found love of inanimate objects because inanimate objects, which I kept in pristine condition, couldn't harm me or talk back to me.
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Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
So I always loved collecting things.
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Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Books, records, toys, dinky toys. But mostly records and books, which I never lent out to anybody because I still have my books.
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Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
Yeah, I'm an addict. It was the instigation of being an addict. But it was because I felt safe with the objects and not with my parents. And so...
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And it gave me a determination, you know, with my dad not wanting me to be anything to do with rock and roll when Elvis Presley came in, that I would be determined to prove to him that my mother who took my side and said, yeah, you should do what he does and let him do the music because he loves it. And was very supportive. My dad, of course, hated it.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And I've been trying to prove to my dad that it's been okay ever since. So it gave me the determination to make something of myself. And it's just prolonged in my life. He's been dead for over 30 years. And I'm still kind of doing that. It's like, well, dad, I hope you're proud now. And it's crazy.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
He was a trumpet player in a band, yeah.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I know. He just considered... There was an expression in him called wide boy, which meant crook. He said, if I became a... Elton is... My mother read the letter to me. It's in a thing called Tantrums. Elton would become a wide boy if he carried... Rock and roll is just... There's no future. He wanted... A solid future for me in a bank or in the Air Force or doing a proper job.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
You know, it was all down. You grew up in the 50s. You knew what it was like. When Elvis came, it was a revolution. It was a social revolution. And people were horrified. And people in England were horrified who had, you know, conservative opinions of what was good and what was bad. If I became a rock and roller, my life would fall apart. To a certain extent, he was right.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
No, not really. He never came to my shows. He never wrote a letter saying, well done.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
No, no, no. He had four other sons that he had with his – married to Edna. He was a tactile father to them and loving. He just – you know, I've done so much therapy and rehab. And I just look back on it and saying this was an unfortunate meeting of two people who should never have met each other.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
I think he was a musical snob, yeah.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And, you know, I grew up – I'm so grateful for – I mean, I always had music in the house, Terry. I grew up with, you know, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, George Shearing. This is great music. All great music. I mean, all from America, obviously, but great music. When I was like nine years old, I think I got Songs for Swinging Lovers as my Christmas present by Frank Sinatra.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And I loved George Shearing. He was a jazz player, pianist, who was blind, who came from Pinner, where I came from. And when I first became successful in the early 70s, I went to New York and I phoned him. And I said, thank you. I grew up with your music. And it was fantastic. And I was only six or seven years old when I heard your music. But I loved it.
Fresh Air
Someone Once Told Elton John He Would Never Be A Pop Star
And it made me want to play the piano like you, although I couldn't play as well as you. But I was very grateful to the music I had. But when Elvis Presley came knocking on the door and little Richard and Jerry Lewis, who started jumping on the piano, then that was what I wanted to do.