YOUR SONG by ELTON JOHN. Story by Barbara Hughes

Kooyong tennis stadium, Melbourne 1971
Sydney, 2018

It’s October 1971 and a sixteen-year-old me is making my way through the concrete bowels of the Kooyong tennis stadium.  Soon I’ll emerge into brilliant Spring sunshine and take my seat with 11,000 excited fans, all eager to see one young man.  The support acts are Australian rock royalty, Chain and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, and the crowd is already on its feet when Elton John, with his orange and purple hair, clad in white shorts and knee-high socks, makes his way to the grand piano. The whole stadium erupts.  For the next hour and a half, he has us in the palm of his hand as he leaps and jumps across the stage and does handstands on the piano. What we didn’t know then was that this young man’s music would form the soundtrack to our lives for the next 50 years.

This was Elton’s first Australian tour.  At the age of just 24, he had already released four albums.  But in 1970, with lyricist Bernie Taupin, he released a simple ballad that would become one of the best loved songs of all time and would set him on the road to superstardom and a career lasting over five decades. This was the song all the sixteen-year-olds had come to hear.  Our song. Your Song.

Kooyong 1971. Photo: ©JANDS Pty Limited

In 2018 I auditioned for the Australian tour of the stage musical, Billy Elliot.  I’d been doing shows for years but this would be my first big professional musical. As I was flying to Sydney for the final call-back, I was having a bit of a daydream that went something like this: Elton John wrote the music for Billy Elliot; he might come and see the show; I might get to meet him; I might get a selfie with him.  I hadn’t even cast been cast in the show and already I had that photo framed on my wall.

I did get cast and, in the excitement of moving to Sydney, weeks of rehearsals, the thrill of opening night and the rigours of eight shows a week, I forgot all about Elton. Until one night in November when I arrived at the stage door to find the theatre buzzing with excitement.  Security guards in sharp suits lined the halls and as soon as we hit the dressing rooms the Chinese whispers started…’It’s Elton…It’s Elton…Elton.’

Act 1 of Billy Elliot ends with a high energy riot scene and all the adult ensemble members were involved except me.  At interval, as I sat alone in the dressing room, I could hear a familiar voice approaching along the corridor.  I scurried down to sit nonchalantly near the door in the hope of catching a glimpse of Elton as he passed by.  Instead, he stopped and walked in.  I had a moment to take in the purple jacket and track suit pants before he gave me that familiar gap-toothed smile and said ‘Hello’.  The eternal fangirl took over and I leapt up, stammering, ‘I’m so excited.’ And Elton smiled again and said, ‘Oh, bless you.  Give me a hug.’

And as I fell into his purple satin clad arms, 50 years melted away and I was that sixteen-year-old again, sitting in the Melbourne sunshine, listening to Your Song.

Stereo Story #709