11/27/2023 0 Comments Elton john rocket man original version![]() He dearly wants to be with his family yet he loves the stars in space. Bradbury’s story is about an astronaut who is torn between going to space and being with his family. “I think I only got considered when they realized that I actually wasn’t in there.The lyrics of this iconic song were heavily inspired by a 1950s short story titled “The Rocket Man” by the late American author Ray Bradbury. “I’m probably going to be the first lyricist that’s actually in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, because, quite honestly, there aren’t many others,” he said. The book comes out a few months before Taupin’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - almost 30 years after John got in and, to many, a long-overdue honor for the man who wrote “My gift is my song, and this one’s for you.” It’s full circle for the boy who once played cowboy. ![]() Later in life, he embraced making expressionist art and the sport of cutting, an equestrian competition in which a horse and rider are judged on their skill separating cows. So I’m just lucky to be able to find the people that are able to put my stories into the right framework,” he said. “I like writing in a country vein and the Americana vein because it suits my sensibility better than anything else. Though associated closely with John, Taupin has also co-written such hits as “We Built This City” by Starship, “These Dreams” by Heart and “Breakfast in Birmingham” by Tanya Tucker. “I never take for granted that our songs have stood the test of time. ‘Now, what was he trying to say with this?’” he said. It’s like looking at contemporary modern art or abstract art. “I think it’s far more interesting to let people come up with their own conclusions as to what this song is about. The John-Taupin collaboration has created some of modern music’s most lasting hits, like “Your Song” and “Rocket Man.” But Taupin is not precious about the meaning of his lyrics. “In my mind, Ralphie was every every bit as important to me as running and hanging with Salvador Dali.” “The chapter was to say there are people that are there for a short time in our life that don’t leave a great legacy, but they do in your own mind,” said Taupin. There are unusual sections, like a chapter that compares the prominent surrealist artist Salvador Dali, who got on Taupin’s nerves, with Taupin’s driver, Ralphie, an unknown guy whose company he enjoyed. It’s like writing songs: You write what you feel like writing at any given time. “Doing it in a linear fashion, I think would have bored me, basically. His feelings and encounters with the royal family get one chapter, as does his trips to Mexico. Taupin rejected writing a linear memoir, instead taking a page from Bob Dylan’s “Chronicles” and collecting his thoughts in themes or locations. “He’s totally inside, but, in a way, he’s outside and can live something of a normal life in the way Elton John can’t.” “He got to live like a rock star, but he didn’t have to be one and that gives him a certain kind of clarity,” said Schafer, who has worked on books by Brian Wilson, Lou Reed and Buddy Guy. He and John’s first album, “Empty Sky,” was “an acceptable debut, but more importantly, a harbinger of growth and improvement.” Later, the album “Jump Up!” was “definitely subpar.”īen Schafer, an executive editor at Hachette Books who worked with Taupin on the memoir and is thanked in the acknowledgements, said “Scattershot” benefits from a writer living in two worlds. He also isn’t shy about criticizing his own work. But I also compliment the ones that deserve to be complimented.” ![]() “I call out a few people, some more than others. But you have to call people out,” he said in the interview. “I always find that people tend to tiptoe around in autobiographies. Of Andy Warhol, he writes: “Talking to Andy was like conversing with an 8-year-old girl” and he wasn’t a fan of Hugh Hefner: “He was the possessor of a perpetual, passive smirk that I found unsettling.”
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