Me By Elton John

 

Me, by Elton John, is fabulous, darling. Biographies are generally more fun when they cover someone who, albeit a nosedive or two, finds contentment. Following John’s youthful devotion to music through his drug addled disco Queen stage and onward to his present incantation as premier British philanthropist, happily married father of two, and recent inductee to the National Portrait Gallery in Londond, Me delivers the high-end goods.

Family Revelations

“I never saw [my father] again. I couldn’t see the point. There was no real relationship to repair. Our lives had been completely separate for decades. There weren’t beautiful childhood reminiscences to be picked apart and savored.”

Intimate revelations

“I barely drank and I still wasn’t interested in sex, largely because I’d managed to get to the age of nineteen without gaining any real knowledge or understanding of what sex actually was. Aside from my father’s questionable assertion that masturbating made you go blind, nobody had furnished me with any information about what you did or were supposed to do. I had no idea about penetration, no idea what a blowjob was.”

Rockstar Revelations

“I then apparently returned to the video set, demanded they began running the cameras, took off all my clothes and rolled around naked. John Reid was there, performing as an extra in the video, dressed as a clown. He remonstrated with me, an intervention I took very badly. So badly, in fact, that I punched him in the face.”

Honest Self-appraisal

“I decided to eschew Regency or Palladian decoration in favor of a style know among interior designers as Mid-70s Pop Star on Drugs Goes Berserk.”

Catty Asides

“The [Lion King] soundtrack sold eighteen million copies – more than any album I’ve ever released except my greatest hits collection. As an added bonus, it kept Voodoo Lounge by The Rolling Stones off the number one spot in America all through the summer of 1994. I tried not to be too delighted when I heard that Keith Richards was furious, grumbling about being ‘beaten by some fuckin’ cartoon’.”

“I was in bed alone at Woodside one Sunday morning, half watching television, when a guy with bright orange hair suddenly appeared on the screen and called Rod Stewart a useless old fucker. I hadn’t really been paying attention, but now I was suddenly riveted: someone slagging off Rod was clearly too good to miss. His name was Johnny Rotten, he was wearing the most amazing clothes and I thought he was hilarious – like a cross between an angry young man and a bitchy old queen, really acidic and witty.”

Slips of Judgement in Hindsight

“Besides, the real Vladmir Putin rang me at home a few weeks later to apologize and said he wanted to set up a meeting. The meeting hasn’t happened – I’ve been back to Russia since, but my invite to the Kremlin seems to have gotten lost in the post. But I live in hope.”

 

The ultimate purpose of an autobiography, one must presume, is to improve the reputation of the author. On this account, Me succeeds. Prior to reading his book I was firmly neutral on the subject of Elton John. While appreciative of both his creativity and joie de vivre, I was not truly a fan of his musical output. For that, I apologize. No oeuvre is flawless, especially those of highly productive people such as John. What should be admired regardless of taste is his relentless artistic drive, talent for reinvention, and heartfelt embrace of this crazy business of being human.

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