BURNING the CANDLE at BOTH ENDS
This August will mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in Paris, an event that sparked an incredible public outpouring of grief and inspired Elton John to re-work his hit “Candle in the Wind” for his friend. In her new book on eulogy, The La
THE EULOGY CAN EASILY BECOME A VEHICLE FOR CLICHÉ
The Last Word: Reviving the Dying Art of Eulogy By Julia Cooper Coach House Books 168 pp; $14.95
Campy and flamboyant, Sir Elton John, a close friend of Diana’s, gave the people’s eulogy for the People’s Princess. The straining piano tribute “Candle in the Wind” famously commemorated the fallen princess in song. What is remarkable about “Candle in the Wind” is not its saccharine lyrics or schmaltzy melody – in this regard, it is a pedestrian example of An Elton John Song. The song wasn’t even an original: John reworded and rerecorded his 1973 ballad of the same name, which he had originally written to eulogize Marilyn Monroe. Swapping “Norma Jeane” for “England’s Rose” in his reprise for Princess Di, he pretty much called it a day’s work. What is remarkable about John’s eulogy song is how its outpouring of unabashed chintz allowed a nation of stiff upper lips to get weepy.
John vowed to never perform his eulogy song ever again, a gesture meant to mimic the transience of his unlasting friend. Refusing to perform “Candle in the Wind” also functioned to make the song seem all the more precious – at least in its Diana- not- Marilyn version – and it worked. John has sung the 1973 ballad many times over, though never its 1997 redux, but he did press a single of his Diana tribute. The 1997 “Candle in the Wind” was released in September of that year and sold a recordbreaking 33 million copies worldwide. In the U. K. it became the country’s best- selling single of all time and came close to that in the U. S., too. It also won John a Grammy. John treated his Diana tribute single like a rare commodity, but a commodity nonetheless, and its one live performance gave its expansive distribution a sense of scarcity that didn’t actually exist.
Let’s revisit John’s choice to reprise his original tribute to Monroe on the occasion of his once- royal friend’s death. If nothing else, a eulogy is meant to be unique. Heartfelt. Singular. Even though death comes for us all, the way in which the final moment happens is total- ly unique for everyone. No two deaths are the same. The contemporary eulogy is meant to address this to a small public for whom the specificity of a given loss is shared. In the instance of “Candle in the Wind,” there was a lot more emphasis put on what John’s audience had lost: an image of charity, an icon of motherhood, a portrait of femininity. Diana the flesh-andblood woman was missing from this tribute and was delivered a kind of second death in the song’s hook. John turned the princess to wax, morphing her into equal parts Icarus and Eric Clapton’s eternal flame. Despite Diana’s work with world leaders to eradicate AIDS, despite her having raised two children and gotten out from beneath her manipulative husband, despite being a beloved international figure espousing peace and gay rights, John likened her to a measly candle on a drafty day.
A eulogy is an offering. It’s an attempt to provide some comfort as the first spoken words after a death. To be sure, that’s a tall order. To sum up the significance of a life in a short speech? It is impossible, and even to attempt that summing up, that siphoning off, feels inadequate. There is certainly an unsettling crassness to it. In this way, the eulogy can easily become a vehicle for cliché: if we can’t find the right words at the right time, at least we can find some safe, well-worn ones to fill the space. And that’s exactly what John did with “Candle in the Wind.” Maybe, especially given his grief, we could forgive John for being lazy. Yet, there’s something more disturbing at play here. In choosing to revamp his ode to Monroe for Diana, John drew an analogy between the two women that cheapens the death of each. The 1997 iteration of the song flattens Diana’s life, painting her as yet another tragic blond bombshell.
It could be said that John revised “Candle in the Wind” as a way of castigating the paparazzi for their central role in Diana’s death in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. One might then catch the resemblance to the unrelenting Hollywood gossip rags that hounded Monroe until she took her own life. But what’s the point of forging this fatalistic solidarity between the two women? By linking the deaths of the Princess and Monroe, John revealed a few things. First, his lack of imagination. Second, when it comes to popular female icons, people prefer to stick to clear- cut and recognizable tropes. And third, with “Candle in the Wind,” John chose to keep Diana in the realm of image as opposed to flesh. Diana’s face, name, and story were so often collapsed into grainy photos that had the power to make people buy magazines. But celebrating this particular quality of her being dissociates her from the life she led behind those photos, and in sensationalizing her glamorous image in his tribute, John tacitly condones the same spirit that led to the paparazzi chasing her at 120 kilometres per hour through a Paris tunnel. In fact, the lyrics suggest John hoped his friend, tormented so by the press, would be able to find not only peace, but a sliver of happiness, in her eternal rest. “Candle in the Wind” makes it seem as though — even after you die — happiness remains the ultimate goal.