Sir Elton John performs at Paramount Pictures' Rocketman: Live in Concert in Los Angeles last month.
Sir Elton John performs at Paramount Pictures' Rocketman: Live in Concert in Los Angeles last month.
In a bar, far from home, Ashleigh Young finds a touchstone in Elton John
I'm in a bar in Toronto, jet-lagged and feeling sorry for myself, when Elton John's The Bitch Is Back starts playing. It is a truly demented song – that hectic guitar riff, the dorky trumpets and,worst of all, the saxophone solo, which to me sounds like a loud man yabbering away on a long-haul flight. But somehow The Bitch Is Back makes me feel a bit better.
I am in Toronto for the writers' festival and, although I'm grateful to have the opportunity to come to a big city and maybe sell a copy of my book, for the past couple of days I have been full of nerves because I hate travelling by myself. At airports you have to carry all your stuff into the loo because if you leave it behind it will look like a bomb. As a solo traveller you get selected for random scanning all the time. On the plane you have no one to fall asleep on. Everything is more annoying and confusing.
In the bar I am reading James Brown's book of poems, Favourite Monsters. One of my favourite poems in Favourite Monsters is Loneliness. It describes a scene in which, one autumn afternoon, mid-period Elvis turns up on a university campus and walks across the quad, whistling. "There was a palpable happiness, for once you have seen Elvis, you are never alone."
The song changes to The One. It has a lot of synth and the lyrics have wild horses running around and people with fire flying from their hands. I remember leaping around the living room to this song, and feel even better. I thought I'd left Elton John behind long ago but he's still there.
On the final leg of my journey here, from Houston, the man sitting next to me had pulled out a big stack of magazines. He shook each one open with an almighty crack and turned the pages vigorously. Snap, snap, snap. He gulped his wine and then his tray table got stuck and he could not manoeuvre it back into place. An attendant came to help and he barked, "You gotta really wrestle with that thing!" Snap, snap, snap. I put on my headphones and listened to the latest Fresh Air podcast. It was Elton John, and like a lamb to the teat, I was immediately soothed. He was promoting his new autobiography. He talked about his miserable childhood, his love of Elvis, and his cocaine addiction. "I would have seizures in the middle of the night, and people would find me on the floor and put me to bed," he said. "Twenty minutes later, I'd be up doing cocaine again." I thought of
Elton John going through all of that while kids like me were choreographing special dances to Crocodile Rock in their bedrooms and I felt a retrospective concern and tenderness for him.
Elton John at Forsyth Barr Stadium last year. Photo / Otago Daily Times
Song for Guy, an instrumental, is playing. My heart soars, and I have a sudden memory. As a kid, I tried to convince my best friend that, in fact, it was me playing the piano on Song for Guy, not Elton John. My friend was suspicious. "What are those drumming noises then?" she asked. "That's just the metronome," I said, pointing to my metronome on top of the piano. I later told this friend that I planned to marry Elton John when I was old enough. "My brother told me that Elton John is gay," she said, "so he probably won't want to marry you." "He is not gay! Shut up! Shut up!" I said.
I finish my beer and leave the bar. Toronto has gone bananas. Traffic is gridlocked and people seem to be queueing randomly. I can't figure out this city. All the business people look like they've been photoshopped in. There are cranes digging up footpaths and plastic tubes between buildings. Homeless people lie on pieces of cardboard. "Aw, you just do what you gotta do, buddy!" says a man when a dog comes up to him. Then, I hear the unmistakable frenzy of The Bitch Is Back spilling from the doorway of another bar. Just how many bitches are there in this city?
Elton John played that song in 1993, on The One Tour, when my family and I went to see him in Auckland. It was my first concert. Elton John arrived at the stadium in a helicopter and strode across the stage with arms held wide. Through binoculars I could make him out in his sparkly suit and thick-rimmed glasses. His piano glowed coral pink. I felt electrified with joy.
As I try to navigate through the glacial crowd, I hear a man yell into his phone, "I'm goin' to Elton John with Mitch." I stop. The seething traffic and crowds – it's all for Elton. When I continue up the road I see him plastered on the side of a building, standing beside a big yellow piano. THE FAREWELL TOUR. Once you have seen Elton, you are never alone. Satisfied at last, I head back to my hotel.
