Neil Mccormick
Elton retiring? I’ll believe it when I see it
Has rock and roll reached the age of retirement? On Tuesday, Neil Diamond announced his departure from live performance, aged 77. Yesterday, it was Elton John’s turn. The great singer-songwriter and showman says he is stepping back from the stage. But, first, there is the little matter of a 300-date world tour, lasting three years and visiting five continents.
All this talk of retirement is, of course, symptomatic of rock’s advanced age. Sir Elton is 70 and he has been a fixture on the pop landscape for more than 50 years. We have witnessed the deaths of so many musical icons in recent years that no one could really begrudge a much-loved veteran star stepping back while he still has the energy and health to enjoy life. He married his longtime partner, David Furnish, in 2014 and they have two sons, Zachary (seven) and Elijah (five).
“I plan to bring the passion and creativity that has entertained my fans for decades to my final tour,” he said at yesterday’s press conference. “After the tour finishes, I’m very much looking forward to closing off that chapter of my life by saying farewell to life on the road. I need to dedicate more time to raising my children.”
There have also been a few health scares in recent years, including appendicitis and a potentially deadly bacterial infection, that are sure to have concentrated his mind on matters of mortality. However, I think there are questions about how quiet this particular retirement is likely to be.
The last time I interviewed him, in 2016, he was already talking about slowing his career down. “I really don’t want to do this forever,” he insisted. “I don’t want to die on the road. I want to die at home, and I want to spend a lot of time with my kids before I do.” However, he was clear that it wasn’t the music he was tired of so much as the travel. “I’ll always play, but I don’t want to be schlepping around the world for it.” He presumably can’t be feeling particularly concerned about his health if his plans to bow out include surfing the world for another three years. It is
‘He has been our most garrulous and indiscreet pop star for decades, riding high through rock’s wildest times’
going to be a very long goodbye and Sir Elton intends to milk it for all its worth.
It is actually hard to imagine what the music business would be like without him around. He has been Britain’s most garrulous, notoriously indiscreet pop star for decades, riding high through rock’s wildest and most flamboyant times. Since his first hit with Your Song in 1970, he has sold more than 300 million albums worldwide and still holds the record for the biggest-selling single ever (his tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, Candle in the Wind 1997).
With Tim Rice, he has composed some of the most successful musicals of the modern era, including The Lion King, Billy Elliot and Aida. He has become such an iconic figure that he is almost as well-known for his outspoken remarks as his soulful voice and incredible songcraft. He has worn outrageous costumes and ridiculous spectacles, sung at royal weddings and funerals, duetted with almost every star of any magnitude, from John Lennon to Eminem, George Michael to Ed Sheeran, and somehow, despite all the fickleness of trends, remained present in the pop conversation for his entire career, admired by his veteran peers and young artists alike, acknowledged as a great music lover and champion of talent, old and young.
Yet Elton’s image and success can serve to disguise the real substance and quality of his work, particularly adapting the florid, serious-minded lyrics of lifelong writing partner Bernie Taupin with a genuine sense of musical adventure. It would be hard to think of anyone else with a comparable catalogue of richly melodic songs stretching from the intimate to the epic, drawing in pop, rock, disco, gospel, soul and jazz, incorporating unusual string arrangements, driven by audaciously virtuoso piano playing, adorned with gorgeous harmonies and always sung with direct, soulful passion.
He started playing live as a member of Bluesology in 1962, formed a songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin in 1967 and (changing his name from Reg Dwight) released his first solo single in 1968. After the flamboyant brilliance of a red-hot Seventies streak (12 classic albums and 16 Top 10 US singles), the quality of his work arguably suffered in the Eighties. His style became more overtly poppy, with a harder production edge, yet another nine albums were peppered with moments of brilliance and stuffed with monster hits such as I’m Still Standing, I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues and Sacrifice.
The hits kept coming in the Nineties, although they tended to be more gimmicky, with duets and reworkings of old material. From 2001, with the fantastic Songs from the West Coast, you could hear a new maturity in his work, connecting with his Seventies roots yet trying different approaches, following the interior logic of the song where once he might have piled up pop hooks.
These days, his sales may no longer be stratospheric, as can happen to any artist whose discography becomes so extensive that their back catalogue tends to outsell their new releases. But the quality of the work remains high, and his appeal as a live attraction is undimmed. He regularly plays summer stadium shows in the UK.
Elton’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour arrives in the UK in 2020. But will it really be the last chance to see one of the most exotic creatures in popular culture in his natural habitat? The cynical might say that there’s nothing like announcing a farewell to boost ticket sales. Except maybe making a comeback.
The last time I asked him about retirement, he just laughed. “If I stop and say enough, what the f--- am I going to do? Lionel Richie didn’t make an album or play a show for 10 years [between 1986 and 1996]. I said to him once: ‘What have you been doing?’ He said: ‘I’ve been playing golf.’ Christ! That’s a lot of f---ing golf!” Elton snorted.
“I don’t want to go out with a whimper, I want to go out with a big bang,” he said during his press conference. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Elton John will stop till they carry him off the stage on a stretcher. And maybe not even then.