Glastonbury Festival, England, 26 June 2023

As Rocket Man came to a soaring end, I rose to my feet in the living room and erupted into thunderous applause. “Bravo! Bravo!” I shouted at the television screen until my throat grew hoarse. But as the lights went down and Elton walked offstage and into retirement, I felt a little piece of myself leave with him.

Sir Elton Hercules John. Reginald Kenneth Dwight. A man whose songs have been a constant in my life ever since I can remember. Yet I can’t say that my relationship with his music has always been plain sailing.

Being a firm favourite of my dad, Elton was quite simply never off the record player when I was a child and it drove me mad! I often joked that he was an extra member of our family, such was his presence at family dinners, parties, special occasions and pretty much everything else in between.

But over the years, my disinterest and embarrassment reluctantly grew to like to love to can’t live without as I reached adulthood. Without even realising, Elton had slowly weaved his way into my soul and now he’s quite simply etched there. I couldn’t possibly extract him if I tried. And nor would I want to.

As I went to bed that night after Glastonbury and struggled to sleep, random memories bounced around my brain…

Three years old watching The Lion King at the cinema. The Circle of Life. Can You Feel the Love Tonight. Enter stage right, Elton.

Four years old, the Two Rooms tribute album. My strange introduction to Elton’s greatest hits.

Five years old, Live Like Horses incessantly playing all summer. God, I hated that song at the time. So did Pavarotti and Elton, I would later find out.

Then, suddenly in 1997, he was everywhere:

In the flat on our family holiday to Weymouth, Big Picture blaring from my dad’s little cassette player. That night was the first time I ever ate spaghetti bolognese.

At Princess Diana’s funeral, emotionally singing Candle in the Wind. I had no idea of its significance back then.

The Perfect Day charity single for Children in Need. In fits of giggles, my brothers and I slipping on huge novelty glasses to accompany Elton’s line.

“Not Elton again!” I would moan every Friday evening when Dad kicked back with a concert after a busy week at work.

“That’s Sir Elton to you,” he would always retort from his armchair.

Yet, when Songs from the West Coast came out in 2001, I realised—to my horror—that I liked it. And then when this was followed three years later by Peachtree Road, I found that I liked it even more. What was happening to me? This music that was so different from my then-favourites: Nirvana, HIM and The Rasmus.

But behind the glitter and the glamour, the tantrums and the tiaras, I found so much emotional depth and musical complexity in Elton. But no, I couldn’t admit that. I had to keep up the pretence for now.

So, the moaning would continue and my dad—ever the joker—started hiding photos of Elton around the house with different captions to wind me up. I’ll never forget the day I opened my lunchbox at school to find Elton in a Donald Duck costume staring up at me, huge smile on his face.

Anxious to confide in someone, I snuck Peachtree Road to my best friend’s house and played it to her. “What do you think?” I asked as the album ended. “Not bad,” she admitted. That was good enough for me.

From that day on, I started casually asking my dad about Elton’s music, trying to play it cool and conceal my growing interest, which was getting harder to do. The new Elton 60: Live at Madison Square Garden boxset had left me stunned. Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding took my breath away, while Empty Garden—written about the murder of John Lennon—reduced me to tears. And hearing the live version of Ballad of a Well-Known Gun made me fall in love with the whole of Tumbleweed Connection—still one of my favourite albums of all time.

So, in May 2007, when Elton announced that he was coming to Home Park in Plymouth, I swallowed my pride and pleaded with my parents to take me. The cat was finally out of the bag! Still in my goth phase, I went to the concert with my head down and long black hair concealing my face, vowing not to sing along or clap. But the moment I heard those ivories a-tinkling, I was out of my seat and dancing.

After that night, there was no use in hiding it anymore. I was now a fully-fledged fan. On every new release, I was there with my dad to buy it and listen. Whenever Elton was performing on television, we would make a date to watch together. A framed copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road hung on my wall. I even chose Elton as the theme of my undergraduate dissertation.

So yes, as Elton’s Glastonbury set came to an end, I was filled with sadness. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Because music is always so much more than just music. It’s a vehicle of memories, experiences, relationships, connections. It’s quite simply everything.

 

Stereo Story #753

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Lauren Alex O'Hagan is a researcher in the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at Örebro University and specialises in the study of music fandoms and identities. She has published works on Rory Gallagher, Phil Lynott and Tom Petty, and is the co-founder of the Rewriting Rory blog (https://rewritingrorygallagher.blogspot.com/)