Music / Elton John

He remembers when rock was young.

Captain Fantastic, raised and regimented
Hardly a hero
Just someone his mother might know.

— "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy"

Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, in Pinner, England, classically-trained Sir Elton John began his career in various blues bands and as a session musician, before answering a newspaper ad by Liberty Records for aspiring songwriters. He was given his first set of lyrics by Bernie Taupin, a struggling lyricist, to set them to music. Taupin liked what he heard, and the two formed a platonic and professional bond — they have been a songwriting team (Taupin lyrics, John music) for most of John's career.

Changing his name by deed poll to "Elton Hercules John" in 1970 (Elton for saxophonist Elton Dean, John for a singer Reg's old band Bluesology backed up, Long John Baldry, and Hercules, well from a racehorse in Brit Com Steptoe and Son), Elton (with Bernie's lyrics in tow) would gain a reputation as a singer-songwriter-pianist par excellence. By 1972, he had begun to wear increasingly flamboyant costumes, clothes, and eyeglasses, which became a trademark for him until the mid-1980s. He became an unexpected superstar, with a string of highly successful albums such as Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (a double), and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. His success tapered by the late-1970s, especially after outing himself in 1976. In the meantime, he appeared in the film Born to Boogie as himself, and in Tommy singing "Pinball Wizard".

He has had numerous comebacks in The '80s and The '90s, and successfully rehabilitated himself from drugs, alcohol, and bulimia in 1991. He later helped score The Lion King (1994) with Tim Rice in 1994 (winning an Oscar), and co-authored several Broadway musicals, including The Lion King, Lestat, Aida, and Billy Elliot. He received a star on the Hollywood Hall of Fame in 1975, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and was knighted in 1998. A theatrical revue of his songs, featuring Sir Elton in concert amid elaborate staging, films, and props, titled "The Red Piano'', opened in Las Vegas in 2004 and closed in 2009.

He has performed at Live Aid, Live 8, the Freddie Mercury Concert for Life and the Concert For Diana. He has also performed at the funeral for Princess Diana in 1997, singing a revised rendition of his 1973 hit "Candle in the Wind". "Candle in the Wind 1997", produced by Beatles producer Sir George Martin, became the most successful single of all time at 37 million copies, all royalties donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Elton is a former chairman (and the current Life President) of Watford Football Club, which he supported as a child; he took over the club in 1976 when they were in the fourth division, and went onto oversee the most successful period in the club's history (rising to the first division, qualifying for the UEFA Cup and reaching the FA Cup final). He's also the founding chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), which he founded in 1992 after the death of Ryan White, a hemophiliac teenager from Indiana who developed AIDS after being infected with HIV from a contaminated clotting factor treatment. He befriended White after misinformed parents and teachers in his community protested against the boy's return to school.

He is well-known for his deft sense of humor, massive spending sprees, and very public tantrums. He is also well-known for wearing odd costumes and crazy glasses, especially in The '70s. His fortune is estimated at £175 Million, making him one of the most successful musicians of all time. Elton is also well known for having a wide-ranging musical taste, and he has championed new and breaking artists throughout his career. Since 2015, he has hosted Elton John's Rocket Hour on Apple Music's Beats One station, where he regularly plays and interviews his favorite new artists.

Good friends with fellow piano man Billy Joel, with whom he has toured sporadically since the 1990s.

His life and career are fictionalized in the biopic film Rocketman, which he helped produce and fully supported. Taron Egerton portrays him in it.

Through various corporate transactions, the singer's entire recorded music catalogue is currently distributed by Universal Music Group, who shares ownership of said catalogue with the singer himself.

Elton saw new fame in The New '20s following team-ups with Dua Lipa ("Cold Heart", which reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100) and Britney Spears ("Hold Me Closer", which reached #6).

As of 2024, he has achieved an EGOT, having won five Grammys, an Oscar for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", a Tony for the score to Aida and an Emmy for his Farewell From Dodger Stadium television special.

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Albums

Studio albums

• Empty Sky (1969)
• Elton John (1970)
• Tumbleweed Connection (1970)
• Madman Across the Water (1971)
• Honky Château (1972)
• Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973)
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
• Caribou (1974)
• Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)
• Rock of the Westies (1975)
• Blue Moves (1976)
• A Single Man (1978)
• Victim of Love (1979)
• 21 at 33 (1980)
• The Fox (1981)
• Jump Up! (1982)
• Too Low for Zero (1983)
• Breaking Hearts (1984)
• Ice on Fire (1985)
• Leather Jackets (1986)
• Reg Strikes Back (1988)
• Sleeping with the Past (1989)
• The One (1992)
• Duets (1993)
• Made in England (1995)
• The Big Picture (1997)
• Songs from the West Coast (2001)
• Peachtree Road (2004)
• The Captain and the Kid (2006)
• The Union (with Leon Russell) (2010)
• The Diving Board (2013)
• Wonderful Crazy Night (2016)
• Regimental Sgt. Zippo (recorded 1967–1968; released 2021)^note This album was meant to be his debut studio album, but it was shelved in favour of Empty Sky; it was given a limited vinyl-only release of 7,000 copies in 2021 for Record Store Day followed by a wide release in July 2022.
• The Lockdown Sessions (2021) ^note  This album is made up of a series of collaborations recorded during a break of his farewell tour caused by something a bit familiar by now, with some of the artists on the album including Stevie Wonder, Lil Nas X, and Dua Lipa.

Soundtracks

• Friends (1971)
• The Lion King (1994) with Tim Rice, Hans Zimmer, and Lebo M.
• Aida (1999)
• The Muse (1999)
• The Road to El Dorado (2000)
• Billy Elliot The Musical (2005)
• Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
• The Lion King (2019) – soundtrack to the remake of the 1994 film; with Tim Rice, Hans Zimmer, and others
• Tammy Faye (2023)

Live albums

• 17-11-70 (1971) – titled 11-17-70 in the US. The album was recorded on the date of its title. Most of the world renders calendar dates day-first, but the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, use month-first format.
• Here and There (1976)
• Live In Australia With The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (1987)
• One Night Only (2000)
• Live from Moscow 1979 (recorded in 1979, released in 2020) with percussionist Ray Cooper

Extended plays

• I've Been Loving You (1968)
• The Thom Bell Sessions (1979)
• The Complete Thom Bell Sessions (1989)
• Remixed (2003)

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Rocket Tropes:

• Adam Westing: Caricatures himself with glee in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
• Album Closure: The final song on the album Madman Across the Water is entitled "Goodbye." It's a slow, quiet, and doleful selection that mourns the loss of a love relationship from the standpoint of the person rejected. Many of the songs on this release deal with personal interactions involving other people ("Tiny Dancer," "Razor Face") or society ("Indian Sunset," "Rotten Peaches"), and this break-up song provides closure to the collection.
• Album Title Drop: Not including album titles that become Title Tracks, Ice on Fire comes from a line in "Nikita", and The Union comes from a line in "Gone to Shiloh".
• The Alcoholic: "Elderberry Wine", "Social Disease", "Talking Old Soldiers" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" depict this in song. Elton's main lyricist Bernie Taupin sobered up in Real Life in the late '70s, Elton himself by 1990.
• Artist and the Band: He did a fictional example with "Bennie and the Jets" from his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album.
• Artistic License – History: "Indian Sunset". The Iroquois had no dealings with the Sioux, and lived in longhouses, as opposed to tipis. The word "Squaw" was not used as a term for women among them. Geronimo died in the hospital as a prisoner, and was not killed while surrendering.
• Badass Boast: "The Bitch Is Back", along with Self-Deprecation.
• Ballad of X: "Ballad of a Well-Known Gun", "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)", "Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes", "The Ballad of Blind Tom"
• Becoming the Mask: As a child, he had good eyesight, but started wearing glasses in homage to his childhood hero Buddy Holly. After more than 40 years, his eyesight has deteriorated to the point that he really needs those glasses.
• Beyond the Impossible: With "Simple Life" in 1993, Elton John achieved 24 consecutive years with a Top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, breaking a record held by Elvis Presley. He would extend it another six years, ending it at 30 in 1999 with "Written in the Stars". The streak finally ended when his only single of 2000, "Someday Out of the Blue", peaked at number 49.
• Break-Up Song: Plenty to choose from. "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", "Cold as Christmas (In the Middle of the Year)", "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", "High Flying Bird", "I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)", "I'm Still Standing" (a more vitriolic variety), "Sacrifice", "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" (more of a rebound song).
• Bury Your Gays: "All the Girls Love Alice", the ballad of a teenage lesbian prostitute who tragically dies young.
• Call to Agriculture: "You can't plant me in your penthouse/I'm going back to my plough."
• Camp Follower: "Sweet Painted Lady"
• Canon Discontinuity: Leather Jackets he's dubbed the worst album he made. Perhaps also Victim of Love, the only album he never played any songs live from.
• Christmas Songs: "Step into Christmas", along with its B-side, "Ho! Ho Ho!" — originally released in 1973, something of a bumper year for Christmas songs by British artists ^note  see also "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade and "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by Wizzard . It's been a perennial of seasonal playlists ever since.
  • In 2021, Elton duetted with Ed Sheeran on the latter's "Merry Christmas", in addition to featuring (with Sheeran) on the LadBaby parody "Sausage Rolls For Everyone", leading to the unusual situation of the top two songs in the British singles charts at Christmas in 2021 being two versions of the same song, with vocals by the same artists!
  • "Cold as Christmas (in the Middle of the Year)" name-checks the holiday but is not itself a Christmas song.
• Chronological Album Title: 21 at 33, his 21st album, with Elton being 33 years old at the time. The "21" figure includes live albums and compilations in addition to studio albums.^note The count includes his 14 studio albums to that point, the Friends soundtrack, Greatest Hits volumes 1 and 2, the live albums 17-11-70 and Here and There, the EP The Thom Bell Sessions, and the rarities collection Lady Samantha.
• Concept Album:
  • Tumbleweed Connection is Taupin's tribute to The Wild West. Notably, neither he nor Elton had visited America at the time the album was written.
  • Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is about Elton and Taupin's early years in the music business together. The Captain & the Kid picks up the story years later.
  • Sleeping with the Past is Elton and Bernie's tribute to the great soul artists of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Cool Shades: Has plenty of different frames that he likes to wear.
• Country Mouse: "Honky Cat". Bernie Taupin himself was one, which is reflected in many of his lyrics, as he faced a lot of opposition from his family to try to make it big in the city as a songwriter.
  • "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" counts as well.
  I should've stayed on the farm, should've listened to my old man
• Cover Version: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; "Pinball Wizard".
  • Before being signed, Elton sang on soundalike low-budget recordings of famous songs of the day marketed to Woolworth's stores, similar to the "Drew's Famous" or "Countdown Singers" albums one finds at department stores nowadays. Occasionally, to capitalize on Elton's later success, you'll find albums like "Chartbusters Go Pop!" or "16 Legendary Covers" featuring these recordings. Witness his covers of "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum, or, erm, "Young, Gifted and Black" by Aretha Franklin!
  • He also covered Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" for a Rumours tribute album in 1998.
• Covers Always Lie: He often points out how moody and sullen he looks on the cover of his 1970 self-titled album, shrouded in darkness with normal-looking glasses, but that even in his earliest performances, he was already displaying strong showmanship and a surprising rock energy for the leader of a piano-bass-drums trio, which the media was surprised at, given his being marketed as a "sensitive singer-songwriter".
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: Surprisingly subverted when he said, "I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." He wasn't necessarily referring to online piracy, but more that he felt that the Internet was making people emotionally detached and over-reliant on technology and that it allowed Dreadful Musicians to flood the market with poorly produced material.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself" attempts to play this trope for laughs. Complete with a tap-dance solo in the middle eight.
  • "Someone's Final Song" from Blue Moves is a more tragic take on suicide.
  • As is "Indian Sunset".
  • Elton made two notable attempts at suicide — one after heiress girlfriend Linda Woodrow falsely told him she was pregnant and that he was the father, then suggested he choose between her or his music — as documented in "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"^note Bernie Taupin refers to this, with some dark humor, as Elton's "Woody Allen attempt" due to Elton leaving the gas in the kitchen, but unintentionally leaving the windows open and once in Los Angeles in 1975 intentionally in front of his visiting mother and grandmother, who were joining him for the unveiling of his star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and concert at Dodger Stadium, by downing fifty Valium and attempting to drown himself in the hotel pool.^note Elton recalls that at the sight of this, and thinking Elton was acting a bit melodramatic, his knowing grandmother deadpanned, "Well, I guess we'd better get going, then."
• Dying Candle: The aptly titled "Candle in the Wind" has a symbolic chorus for a song about "the idea of fame or youth or somebody being cut short in the prime of their life":
  And it seems to me you lived your life
  Like a candle in the wind,
  Never knowing who to cling to
  When the rain set in.
  And I would have liked to have known you,
  But I was just a kid.
  Your candle burned out long before
  Your legend ever did.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The entirety of his debut Empty Sky, a harpsichord-driven album with hardly any piano and more in common with psychedelic pop than the piano-driven soft rock style he'd adopt afterward. The one song to survive in setlists has been "Skyline Pigeon", but even that was re-recorded in a more typical style in 1973.
  • Doubly so for Regimental Sgt. Zippo, which is probably why it went unreleased for decades.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: "Funeral for a Friend" is the most obvious example. Several songs from Blue Moves have these as well; "Tonight" goes on for three minutes before Elton starts singing.
• Epic Rocking: His most notable examples include "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", "Carla/Etude/Fanfare/Chloe", "Tonight", "Gulliver/Hay Chewed/Reprise". However, he tends to have at least one song on most of his albums that passes the six-minute mark. For example, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy has the 6:42 "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" and 6:18 "Curtains". He insisted on the former being the only single from the album and refused to let it be edited in length. It became a huge hit despite its lengthy running time.
  • "Levon" is an interesting case. While a fair length, the original song is only 5 minutes long, not quite "epic". But in concerts? It's almost like Elton and the band forget the song they're playing and insert lengthy guitar and piano solos before coming back for the final chorus, making it run sometimes up to 12 minutes; nearly double the album length. Even without a big backing band, his duet concerts with Ray Cooper have often seen the pair go crazy on this number.
  • "Madman Across the Water" is another interesting case. The first release of the song was a tidy six minute title track dominated by composed orchestral passages. However, Elton and his band recorded a nine minute version during the prior sessions for Tumbleweed Connection that featured a pair of devastating guitar solos by Mick Ronson, which was more in line with the live versions at the time (Elton otherwise being the soloist when the trio band performed it). In the years afterward, the song could be played either closer to its studio length or as an extended jam for the band.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: invokedHe and Bernie Taupin mocked this idea in the Caribou cut, "Solar Prestige a Gammon". Naturally, that song was also over-analyzed, a la "I Am the Walrus".
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In 1992, he got a hair implant as he switched from Camp Gay to Straight Gay. The orange hair dye is emblematic of his switch from "reflective singer-songwriter Elton" to the glam period of 1972–76.
• Fake Band: The premise of "Bennie and the Jets" is that it was a tribute from a fan to the band of the same name, the lyrics a commentary of the music industry's behavior in The '70s.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: "Funeral for a Friend"
• Freudian Excuse: The titular protagonist of "All the Girls Love Alice" has her teenage rebellion attributed to "a simple case of Mummy Doesn't Love Me Blues."
• Genre Roulette: A typical Elton album, especially in The '70s, could go from pop to soul to country to rock to funk to torch songs to ballads to Broadway-style tunes to Epic Rocking.
• Gift of Song: "Your Song" describes how the singer wrote the song to confess their love, and that the song is a humble "gift" to the recipient.
• God Is Dead: The New York Times said so.
• Gratuitous Panning: The chorus of the "Crocodile Rock" (the "la, la, la, la, la" parts) are panned to where the vocals are on the left channel and the Farfisa organ melody is on the right channel. The rest of the song has quite a lot of panning as well, but the chorus is the most blatant part.
• Greatest Hits Album: He's naturally had several; the first, released in 1974, is his best-selling album to date at 32 million copies and counting.
• Grief Song: "Empty Garden" about the death of John Lennon (see below).
  • "The Last Song" (a song concerning a gay boy and his estranged father reconciling with each other on the boy's death bed as he was dying of AIDS). Written in memory of Ryan White (whom Elton knew), Bernie faxed the lyrics to him shortly after Freddie Mercury's death. Elton said that he had cried the whole time throughout making it.
  • "Candle in the Wind". Considering it was written about the death of one of the iconic women of the 20th century (Marilyn Monroe) and repurposed for another (Lady Diana Spencer) it's arguably the most famous of his grief songs.
  • "Blues Never Fade Away" from The Captain & the Kid mourns John Lennon, Ryan White and one other friend of Elton and Bernie's.
  • "Song For Guy", Elton's tribute to a young courier (died in a motorbike accident) at his record company, who Elton now admits that he had a bit of a crush on - but may have been Incompatible Orientation and more of a nascent close friendship.
• Incompatible Orientation: "Elton's Song", well ahead of his own coming out and indeed the song's time overall.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: The B-Side to the title track to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was a song called "Screw You", retitled "Young Man's Blues" in America to avoid offense.
• Last Note Nightmare: In "Gulliver/Hay Chewed/Reprise", the "Gulliver" section ends with wordless vocals that grow louder and more heavily reverberated before jumping straight into the "Hay Chewed" section. It could also double as one for the entire Empty Sky album, since it was used as the representative snippet for "Gulliver" during the Reprise Medley that ends the album.
• Let's Duet: Elton has done many duets over his career:
  • His first number 1 single in the UK was "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" with Kiki Dee in 1976. At that point, he had already scored five chart-toppers in the U.S.
  • His live duet of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" with George Michael in 1991 far outperformed its original release, hitting #1 in the U.S., UK, and many other markets.
  • A lesser-known duet with Eric Clapton, "Runaway Train" (no relation to the later Soul Asylum song), was used in Lethal Weapon 3.
• Licensed Pinball Table: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, a tie-in to both the album and to the movie Tommy.
• Location Song: His song "Belfast" is a Protest Song against the conflict in Northern Ireland.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself", "Since God Invented Girls", "Angeline".
  • Bernie Taupin at the time of the latter album's release noted that Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was a musically "up" album about failure, while The Captain & the Kid was a low-key album about success.
  • Played with by "Sad Songs (Say So Much)", the lyrics of which aren't particularly sad or depressing in and of themselves. However, it's nevertheless a cheerful, upbeat and poppy number about how important, satisfying and necessary it can be to just listen to a good sad song when you're feeling down.
• Market-Based Title/Separated by a Common Language: His first live album was recorded from a November 1970 radio broadcast. It was sold with the title 17-11-70 in most of the world, but 11-17-70 in the US, where dates are invariably rendered in month-first format.
• Medley: "Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly" from Rock of the Westies; "Gulliver/Hay Chewed/Reprise" on Empty Sky; "Carla/Etude/Fanfare/Chloe" on The Fox.
• Merry in Minor Key: The chorus of "I'm Still Standing" is in a minor key, but it's actually more hopeful sounding than the verses, which are ironically in major key.
• Murder Ballad: "Ticking", the last song on Caribou, is one of the first rock songs about a mass shooting.
• Neglected Garden: "Empty Garden", his tribute to John Lennon, likens Lennon's murder to this trope.
  Who lived here?
  He must have been a gardener that cared a lot,
  Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop,
  And now it all looks strange.
  It's funny how one insect can damage so much grain.
• New Sound Album:
  • Honky Chateau saw Elton abandon much of the dramatic singer-songwriter style of his previous albums for one with a more rock-based style and sound, de-emphasising the orchestral backdrops using his live backing band on all of the tracks for the first time rather than use session musicians.
  • Rock of the Westies found Elton using a harder group sound with strong R&B, funk, disco and Blues Rock influences, retaining only guitarist Davey Johnstone and percussionist Ray Cooper from the classic band and expanding to a seven-piece group.
  • A Single Man used stronger Soft Rock influences, with Bernie Taupin entirely replaced as full-time lyricist by Gary Osbourne.
  • Victim of Love saw Elton dabble full-time into disco music at the end of disco's popularity; Elton only provided lead vocals while Pete Bellotte wrote or co-wrote all of the songs (aside from a discofied cover of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".
  • Too Low for Zero saw Bernie's full-time return (along with Elton's classic band from The '70s), but used 1980's pop production values and more synthesizers.
  • The synthesizers/1980's production saw heavier use on Ice On Fire, which also saw most of Elton's classic band laid off (again) in favor of a new band. Strong '80's funk/soul influences also appeared.
  • Reg Strikes Back saw a new sound for Elton himself, as throat surgery in 1987 rendered him unable to sing at his trademark falsetto.
  • Made in England, while AOR/MOR in places, showed Elton return more to his 1970's style, with more dramatic orchestral parts (care of Paul Buckmaster, who arranged the orchestral parts of his early-1970's albums).
  • The Big Picture showed full AOR/MOR influence with heavily synthesized arrangements.
  • Songs from the West Coast saw Elton used a more stripped-down sound even more retro than on Made in England, entirely recorded on analog tape and returning Elton to his singer-songwriter roots.
  • The Diving Board was the most pared-down album in years, with an emphasis on piano, bass and drums (with minimal additions) and more of an intimate feel.
• No Title: "This Song Has No Title" is – paradoxically enough – an aversion.
• The Oner: The videos for "This Train Don't Stop Here Anymore"^note Although not a complete one: it's more like three separate Oners. and "I Want Love".
• One-Man Song: Song for Guy, Nikita.
• Pop-Star Composer: With Tim Rice for Disney's The Lion King (1994) and Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado. Also provided music for Gnomeo & Juliet, the film of which he co-executive produced.
• Precision F-Strike: "The Bitch Is Back", "The bitch is in her smile" from "Bad Blood" which he did (usually uncredited) with Neil Sedaka.
• Protest Song: Some of his songs have subtle elements of this. "Daniel" is a Vietnam War vet (although it's subtle; a cut verse would have made this clearer), while "Ticking", an account of a gun massacre that killed 14 people, is a protest of American gun culture. Furthermore, as mentioned above, "Belfast" is a protest against The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
• Rags to Riches: "Levon", to the extent that anyone can make sense of the lyrics, is apparently one of these stories; Levon's father, Alvin Tostig, is a poor man with high expectations for his son, Levon himself has apparently made a fortune selling party supplies (especially cartoon balloons), and his son Jesus has ambitions far beyond the party store that Levon can't quite accept.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • "The Bitch Is Back". Often, his outrageous costumes and goofy glasses ran on this, in a more clean-cut way, along with Rule of Fun and up to eleven. Donald Duck suits, Eiffel Tower hats, six-foot tall Mohawks, the glasses that lit up E-L-T-O-N. His 50th birthday saw him attend a costume party in a Louis XIV costume with a giant wig, where he had to be lifted off a truck via a crane. And that was after he toned down the costumes/glasses.
  • "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself". Not too many artists play suicide for laughs.
• Religion Rant Song: "If There's a God in Heaven (What's He Waiting For?)".
• Reprise Medley: His Empty Sky album ends with a medley consisting of brief snippets of all the songs on the album in the order which they appeared.
• Rock-Star Song: "Bennie and the Jets", "I'm Gonna Be a Teenage Idol" and some others, including the entire Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and The Captain & the Kid albums.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".
• Self-Titled Album: His second album, and his Breakthrough.
• "Sesame Street" Cred: He once played "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" with The Electric Mayhem and sang "Don't go Breaking my Heart" with Miss Piggy. He also appeared on a Totally Minnie video and he executive produced and contributed music to Gnomeo & Juliet.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Levon" was named in tribute to Levon Helm of The Band.
  • His 1973 album, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player was reportedly named after a joking response Elton made to his friend Groucho Marx when the comedian teased him that it would make more sense for the singer to call himself John Elton. The album cover takes it further, showing a couple buying tickets outside a marquee to a nighttime movie, with a poster of Go West on display to the right.
  • "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is this to The Wizard of Oz, with the narrator not only wishing he's stayed on the farm, but expressing a desire to go back there.
  • One of the songs on his collaboration album The Union with Leon Russell included a song called Jimmie Rodgers' Dream which is named after the influential country singer.
• Significant Birth Date: 'Levon'. 'He was born to a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day...'
• Stylistic Suck: The audience in "Bennie and the Jets" is clapping behind the beat.
• This Is a Song: "This Song Has No Title", "Your Song". "Step Into Christmas" opens with the line "Welcome to my Christmas song."
• This Is Your Song: Trope Namer.
• Title Drop: It happens a few times that the title of an album shows up in one of its songs. A perfect example would be "Nikita" from the album Ice on Fire, where the eponymous crush is described as having "eyes that look like ice on fire".
• The Troubles: "Belfast".
• Two First Names: His stage name, Elton John, provide examples.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Crazy hats, eyeglasses, sunglasses, platform shoes, outfits, costumes and other articles of clothing in The '70s. He (slightly) toned them down by 1988, though the loud suits and Cool Shades he currently wears might also count.
• Unreliable Narrator: "Bennie and the Jets" is narrated by a huge fan of the titular band, who gushes about how cool they look and what a great show they put on, but never mentions anything about the songs themselves, with the implication that they're a crappy style-over-substance band as was becoming more and more common in the early '70s.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice began with a more youthful and bright tone at the start of his career and naturally matured over the course of his career until the mid-1980s until his throat surgery in 1987 changed his voice from a tenor to a baritone, and it's only deepened since. He has rarely used his trademark falsetto range since the voice change, with the extent of his ability to even do so any longer shrouded in mystery.
• Vocal Range Exceeded: By Elton's 1986 "Tour De Force" concert tour promoting Leather Jackets, one in which Elton and his band would be accompanied for part of the set list by a symphony orchestra, Elton would suffer increasing vocal problems due to frequent marijuana and alcohol abuse, bulimic binging and purging and drug-fueled vocal oversinging and misuse, culminating in the recording of the concert film and live album Live in Australia, where he very clearly is struggling throughout the concert from vocal strain and laryngitis. Doctors would soon discover non-cancerous, though career-threatening, nodules in his throat. Surgery done in 1987 would prove successful, but would vocally put Elton out of commission for several months. When he returned by late 1987 at a Prince's Trust concert special, his tenor vocal range would be lowered to a baritone.
• War Was Beginning: Also according to The New York Times. It's unclear if Levon Tostiger got his war wound in the aforementioned war.
• Word Salad Lyrics: "Levon", "Take Me to the Pilot", "Solar Prestige a Gammon". The latter was a deliberate attempt to invoke The Walrus Was Paul, and like many other examples of the trope, got heavily (over-)analysed anyway.

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