Elton reflects on himself and his life

Me, by Elton John, Macmillan, $50. Reviewed by Will Hodgkinson.

For anyone who has wondered how shy and awkward Reg Dwight from Pinner, Middlesex, in England, transformed into the flamboyant superstar Elton John, the man himself outlines the key moment. In the winter of 1967, he was playing keyboards for blues singer Long John Baldry in the Latino club in South Shields.

Baldry was a cool, cult figure but, after scoring a hit with an appalling ballad called Let the Heartaches Begin, he found himself on the chicken-in-a-basket circuit.

Dwight had a revelation – ‘‘my sudden moment of clarity’’, he couldn’t be a jobbing sideman.

So he borrowed Baldry’s first name and that of the band’s sax player (Elton Dean), called a lyricist called Bernie Taupin, whom he had recently met, and became Elton John.

There begins a self-deprecating, funny, ultimately rather melancholic memoir from someone who found his voice not so much through his attributes, but his lack of self-worth.

The Elton John biopic Rocketman covered much of the star’s childhood story, but it didn’t reveal that John’s mother potty-trained him by beating him with a wire brush until he bled, or dealt with his constipation by lifting him on to the draining board and sticking a bar of soap up his bottom.

His father appeared to have wished his son simply didn’t exist. Both had horrific tempers, which John confesses he has inherited – ‘‘a catastrophic pain in the a..e for me and everyone around me for most of my adult life’’, he admits.

He isn’t modest about his musical talent, detailing how he could hear a tune and play it on the piano straight after from the age of 5.

However, in most other aspects of his life, he’s quick to admit his failings, sex in particular. He claims to have been the only British musician of the 1960s to have worked on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, and come back a virgin. He didn’t realise he was gay until the ‘‘outrageously gay’’ Baldry pointed it out to him. Even then he waited until he was 23 to act on it.

Instead, he got engaged to a woman called Linda Woodrow before trying to get out of the marriage by attempting suicide. He put his head in the oven and opened the windows to ensure nobody else was gassed. A suburbanite through and through, he even put a pillow in the oven so he could spend his final moments in comfort.

Years later he tried suicide again, by taking a load of pills and throwing himself in his pool in Los Angeles. His no-nonsense grandmother, over from Pinner, responded to this obvious cry for attention by grumbling: ‘‘We might as well bleedin’ go home then.’’

It is work – and Taupin, for whom John clearly has a great love and respect – that made him if not contented, at least purposeful. He says his early days as a session musician, playing on those Top of the Pops covers albums that clogged up Britain’s charity shops for decades, were the happiest of his life, even when called on to bring what authenticity he could to a hit such as Young, Gifted and Black.

And when his and Taupin’s songwriting took off after years of rejection, he created a stage persona

Me is a self-deprecating, funny, ultimately rather melancholic memoir from someone who found his voice not so much through his attributes, but his lack of self-worth.

that was equal parts Little Richard and jolly Caribbean pianist Winifred Atwell – outrageous, but cuddly. With the help of some too-tight silver hot-pants by British fashion designer Mr Freedom, Elton John was launched.

Music journalist Alexis Petridis has done an excellent job of capturing what reads like John’s conversational tone.

Me is very much a post-rehab book. He isn’t afraid of putting the boot in, and David Bowie (‘‘distant and aloof’’) and Tina Turner (she told him, ‘‘you wear too much Versace, and it makes you look fat’’) come off pretty badly, but mostly there is self-realisation, apologies to the people he has hurt, and reflections on where the coke binges, shopping addictions, and endless need for attention came from.

Sometimes he can get a bit holier-than-thou, forever warning his druggy friends of the pitfalls lying before them, and given that it is called Me, there’s no shortage of ego.

Ultimately he’s hardest on himself.

You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all.