Elton John FAQ

All That's Left to Know About the Rocket Man

Donald Gibson

• Publisher: Backbeat
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781617137020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

In a career spanning five decades, Elton John has sold over 250 million records worldwide and has appeared in nearly 4 000 live performances. Inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award-winning singer-songwriter is the most successful solo artist Great Britain has ever produced and the third-most successful artist overall in American music history (behind only Elvis Presley and the Beatles).

Elton John FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Rocket Man chronicles the music legend's entire career to date. Beginning with his humble, and at times disheartening, childhood in the North London suburb of Pinner, readers are privy to the serendipitous meeting between John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, with whom he'd form a songwriting partnership that would ultimately rank alongside Lennon and McCartney in its success.

Investigating the highs and lows throughout each of John's musical phases and sartorial changes, the book underscores not only the talent behind the legend but the unvarnished truth behind tales that are familiar only to diehard fans.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: His Gift Is His Song
• 1 Made in England: Childhood
• 2 It’s a Long and Lonely Climb: Early Dues
• 3 Hand in Hand Went Music and the Rhyme: Examining the Elton John–Bernie Taupin Songwriting Partnership
• 4 We’re Gonna Need a Helping Hand: The Musicians
• 5 Well, I Looked for Support from the Rest of My Friends: Special Guests
• 6 From the Day That I Was Born I Waved the Flag: Made in America
• 7 The Change Is Gonna Do Me Good: The Honky Château
• 8 Solid Walls of Sound: The Producers
• 9 When Are You Going to Land?: Themes of Escapism in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• 10 Dirt in My Toes, Dirt up My Nose: The Caribou Sessions
• 11 Well, They’re Packed Pretty Tight in Here Tonight: Notable Live Performances
• 12 Everything Crumbles Sooner or Later: Blue Moves, Breakdowns, and Goodbyes
• 13 And It Feels So Good to Hurt So Bad: The Soul Man
• 14 Sitting Pretty in the Masquerade: The Fashions
• 15 Let Me Get Electric, Put a Silk Suit On: But Was Elton John Really Glam?
• 16 But I Know What I Feel: Captain Fantastic Comes Out
• 17 Like Freedom Fields While Wild Horses Run: The Football Fanatic
• 18 I’ve Got a Line or Two to Use on You: Composing with Other Lyricists
• 19 These Independent Moves I Make: A Timeout from Taupin—A Single Man and Victim of Love
• 20 Me and You, We’re All We’ve Got: Ten Best Duets
• 21 Something Tells Me You’re Not Satisfied: Uneven in the Eighties
• 22 Do They Know What It’s Like to Have a Graveyard as a Friend? Grief, Tragedy, and the Untimely Deaths of Famous Friends
• 23 It’s a Human Sign When Things Go Wrong: Demons and Addictions
• 24 I’m Strangled by Your Haunted Social Scene: The Philanthropist
• 25 You Put the Spark to the Flame: Forty Most Underrated Deep Cuts
• 26 I’m a Bitch, I’m a Bitch, I’m Better Than You: Infamous Feuds and Fallouts
• 27 It’s Like Throwing a Switch on the Hands of Time: Rejuvenated in the Nineties
• 28 And Some of Us Soar to the Stars: Scoring for Stage and Screen
• 29 I Could Really Get Off Being in Your Shoes: Ten Notable Cover Songs
• 30 Read ’Em, as They Say, and Weep: Awards, Records, and Distinctions
• 31 This Life of Mine Seemed Surreal at Times: Befriending the Beatles
• 32 I Was Playing Rock ’n’ Roll and You Were Just a Fan: The Official Live Releases
• 33 I’m Not Dying and I’m Far from Gone: A Twenty-First-Century Music Man
• Appendix 1: Get a Little Action In: Side Jobs and Sessions
• Appendix 2: Discography
• Selected Bibliography