How I ripped my trousers in front of Princess Margaret. John Lennon’s mental agony before his last ever show. And how I wrote Elton’s first No 1 after dunking my head in an ice bucket...
More hair-raising tales from Elton John’s writing partner BERNIE TAUPIN in his swashbuckling and eloquent new autobiography
IN THE first part of Bernie Taupin’s engrossing – and at times hilarious – book serialisation in yesterday’s Daily Mail, he recalled the day he met a shy piano player called Reg Dwight in a greasy spoon to discuss writing songs together.
Before long, the pair were as close as brothers, Reg had rebranded himself as Elton John and Bernie was penning the lyrics for hits such as Your Song over breakfast.
In today’s extract, he details his further adventures as the flourishing singer became a global superstar…
IN THE years following my earliest successes, I was to have several interesting encounters with the House of Windsor. This was obviously due to my close proximity to a certain rock star. One such event was a gig in what seemed like the bowels of Windsor Castle. The audience was slim but packed with enough overdressed patricians and eccentricity to warrant weirdness of the first order.
The only recognisable presence and actual product of modernity was Patrick Anson, Fifth Earl of Lichfield, who, while well respected as a celebrity photographer, was equally renowned as a notorious libertine. This fact was soon established when, during a particularly genteel rendition of Your Song, said earl keeled over and crashed to the ground in an intoxicated stupor.
But not a head turned and no attention was paid. It was as if it was a standard procedure.
The Queen then simply inclined her head slightly, said, ‘Lichfield’s gorn again,’ and in came the cleanup crew. Four footmen, powdered wigs and all, trundled down the aisle, picked up the unconscious earl and whisked him away.
Then there was Princess Margaret. It was after another charity concert at the Festival Hall that I found myself along with Elton and the band at a reception and dinner hosted by the Queen’s younger sister at Kensington Palace.
It was held in a large room, at one end of which Princess Margaret was regally situated at the head of the receiving line.
I duly joined the queue and waited my turn to genuflect. In my estimation I was sartorially presentable in a well-tailored but snug white velvet suit that screamed pop star chic. Fully on course to do the right thing, you can imagine my surprise to witness the nicotine-addicted Princess turn to the nearest footman available and proclaim in a voice loud enough to cut glass: ‘Where are my f***ing Winstons?’
This unrefined demand happened to co-ordinate itself with the exact moment of my introduction, which, as fate would have it, included me bowing low and splitting my trousers from crotch to shirt tail.
My expression must have given the game away, for while I attempted to nimbly back out of my predicament and into the ether, Fagash Maggie homed in like a buzzard on a gut wagon.
‘Did we have an accident?’ she inquired dryly. All I could do was confirm her assumption, a response that elicited a sly smile and two sharply snapped fingers. Out of nowhere a smart young woman appeared, curtsying profusely. After a few whispered words from the Princess, she turned and said: ‘Follow me, please.’
Trailing in her wake, I learned that this was Margaret’s lady-inwaiting, and that HRH had allotted her the task of ‘sewing your trousers back together’.
Was she going to sequester me away into a vacant loo and have me pass her the offending article through a crack in the door? Not on your life. I was handed a nice fluffy robe and ushered into Princess Margaret’s private study where I duly dropped my ripped garment into the outstretched arms of my personal royal tailor.
To be left unattended in this intimate space left me not so much agitated as perplexed.
Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind that a certain Antony Armstrong Jones, AKA the First Earl of Snowdon, might barge in at any second to find yours truly sans trousers in his wife’s inner sanctum.
I returned to the gathering as dinner was being served, at which point Lord Snowdon did turn up, demanding to know where his f***ing dinner was. With this volatile invasion, the Princess fled in tears, and that was pretty much it. Surprisingly, and to her credit, I was amazed when, many years later at a party held in her honour in Beverly Hills, she recalled the incident with the same clandestine good humour as she had on the evening it happened. My last dalliance with the Royal Family took place at Elton’s house in Windsor.
It was a glorious summer day and the Queen Mother was coming for tea. The Royal visitor was perfectly delightful and, in a generous gesture on our host’s part, was seated directly opposite me.
This turned out to be no cause for alarm as the old girl and I hit it off, breaking bread over summer pudding and baseball – a game I was fanatical about and on which she seemed unnervingly knowledgeable. With the refreshment at an end, I presumed she’d be hopping straight in the Daimler. Not so! With a breezy apres-tea glow in her cheeks, she expressed a desire to stroll the grounds. What was even more surprising was that she chose me to be her guide.
Sallying forth, we meandered along the side of Elton’s house until
I hit it off with the Queen Mother... we broke bread over baseball
we reached a spot from which Windsor Castle could be seen in the distance, its flag unfurled and flying all the way up, indicating that the Queen was in residence.
‘Oh look, Mr Taupin, my daughter’s at home,’ remarked the Queen Mother nonchalantly.
Indeed!
LINCOLNSHIRE, 1950
I WAS born in Lincolnshire and learned nothing in school. My education came through my family and in the grooves of vinyl albums.
Within the space of a few years we had moved from the primitive and isolated semi-detached farmhouse where I was born into a spacious 18th Century limestone manor house – a generous perk of the large estate where my father was employed as farm manager.
Our relocation to this inexplicably fancy upgrade was a boon for us all, and it was there that the presence of my grandfather was most keenly felt.
We called him Poppy, and his knee was a learning chair.
He dispensed wisdom with a warm uncomplicated joy, a love for the subject matter validated by the twinkle in his eyes.
His gentle coaxing facilitated a quest for creative expression and instilled in me innumerable passions, most notably caring for the quality of words and the stimulation of verse.
I was 11 when he died, but he remains an indelible memory. The day he passed away is the only time I ever saw my mother cry.
My father’s desire to strike out on his own was understandable. I can’t recall us complaining too much, even though the prospect of duplicating our current accommodation was seriously doubtful. We moved into the mother of all fixer-uppers: a dilapidated two-storey stone farmhouse fronting an expansive run-down, overgrown yard containing a broken-down barn and a long, grubby brick battery house.
Chickens! So that was it. For a guy who knew his livestock, it seemed a strange alternative and not one I expected. However, in a world where God’s hand deals the cards, it’s chickens that would ultimately play a major role in my future.
I was still 11 when we transferred from ‘the old house,’ as it became known from then on.
Along with our move came a significant change in my interests. I buried my nose in books, made friends with some locals and fell under the spell of music.
Pre-Beatles, what was generally listened to north of London was American rock and roll. Interestingly enough, Elvis wasn’t that big a deal in our area. Whether or not it had something to do with his refusal to tour outside the States, thus creating a lack of familiarity, I couldn’t say. It was a fact, though, that the artists who played regionally were in favour. The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Gene Vincent, and in particular Eddie Cochran were certainly the flames that burned brightest. By the time I’d failed my 11-Plus I had fallen deeply under the spell of American country music. Having survived the customary servitude at the secondary modern school in Market Rasen, a bus ride of seven miles from our village, an appointment had been made for me to meet with the local youth employment officer. I was 15. While I was thinking journalism, he second-bested me with a job printing the paper rather than writing for it. I folded and agreed – I needed a job. At my interview I was informed that after six years on the floor, and enrolment in night school, I’d receive my diploma when I was 21. Six years! I stuck it for two.
What happened next was completely ironic. I got a job working on a poultry farm, having grasped at the first straw that came along. I worked grinding hours, either toiling in the stuffy broiler sheds or outside where the bitter North Sea wind blew hard and cold across the flat farmland.
It all came to a head with an outbreak of fowl pest. The chickens started dying by the dozen. In fact, they were dying so rapidly that the backlog of bodies was building up at an alarming rate. On a patch of desolate ground at the rear of the property a large incinerator had
By the time I’d failed my 11-Plus I’d fallen under the spell of country music
On Elton’s private plane, cosied up alongside me is John Lennon
been set up, and guess who was designated to feed the fire? For days on end I did nothing but shovel carcasses into the flames.
With a bone-soaking drizzle setting in and a wet wind whipping across the open ground, I took stock of the situation. I implored of a God I knew only casually to please install in me some directive. Obviously the Lord and I were like-minded, because the following Sunday I quit. For the next two years I couldn’t look at a chicken, let alone eat one.
A month later, on June 17, unemployed but expectant, I thumbed through New Musical Express and noticed the advertisement that would end with my meeting Elton.
How my letter and the lyrics I sent in weren’t tossed in the bin after a good chuckle is anyone’s guess. I’m just a country kid who got lucky. In Elton I got the best friend the world has to offer, and a world that offered us everything. I’m a rock and roll anomaly who has functioned unintentionally as a rock star – I never wanted to be one, but have played as one on occasion.
But no matter how much illogical behaviour I have indulged in, no matter how much celebrity entwinement I have encountered, I have always attempted to inhabit a world of normality. The cocoon of fame would have killed me. Had it happened, it would have completely rewired my system, and I’m not sure I want to imagine the outcome.
I believe it is where I came from that has been my saving grace.
NEW YORK, 1974
PICTURE this. I’m aboard the Starship, Elton’s private touring plane, flying out of New York to play Boston Garden. Cosied up alongside me is John Lennon.
The reason John is on this flight is
that, having lost a bet to Elton, the former Beatle has found himself in the unavoidable position of having to join Mr Big Glasses on stage eight days hence at Madison Square Garden. The Boston gig is to be a dry run – a close look at the Elton spectacle (no pun intended), and, in a nutshell, what John is more than likely getting himself into.
With the Boston gig under our belts, it’s back to New York and time to pay the piper. Which is why John Lennon can be found in a bathroom stall backstage at Madison Square Garden. The reality of performing live after such a lengthy absence from the stage has our hero purging his nerves into the porcelain throne.
As countdown becomes inevitable, he relapses into a state of faltering paranoia, his black Telecaster guitar shaking in his hands. I know this because I’m standing next to him in the wings and ready – should he attempt a runner – to propel him physically on to the stage.
As Elton begins his introduction, John begins to plead with me: ‘You have to come out with me.’ I can offer nothing other than the comment: ‘And do what?’
I refuse to dwell on the ultimate significance of this event and its placement in John’s legacy. Yes, it was the last time he would ever appear on stage before his untimely assassination in 1980, but I prefer to recall the decibel-defying hurricane of adulation that night and the pure volcanic eruption of applause. In all my years of concert-going, I have never heard or witnessed anything like it.
Triumph is an understatement. Elton was by then at the top of his game, and the sheer electrical force of his personality and the propulsion of his crackerjack band energised John’s confidence, spotlighting what always made him great: the stance, the voice, the undeniable charisma.
Sadly, my last encounter with John was to be around a year later at the home of Jeanne Martin, the recently divorced wife of the incomparable Dean.
It was all terribly Hollywood, all quite jolly and easygoing, until the somewhat hefty presence of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson plopped down beside me and whispered breathlessly into my ear: ‘Bernie, Bernie! Will you introduce me to John Lennon?’
I felt certain that the two men must have crossed paths before. But then this was Brian Wilson circa 1975: the LSD aftermath, the paranoia. But still a lovely man, and despite being toasted by demons and lost in a fog of fragility, still someone to respect deeply.
So naturally I acquiesced and relayed to John that Brian would like to say hello, and of course he did, gently and pleasantly.
They conversed briefly, and very soon afterwards John and I were in some other corner of the room, where Brian found me and whispered once again into my ear that he’d like to meet John Lennon.
Surprised but not totally unprepared, given the individual at hand, I turned to John, inquiring with a raised eyebrow if he would like to meet Brian Wilson? Similarly unruffled but obviously amused, introductions and small talk were made.
Groundhog Day resumed and it happened a third time. Brian would like to meet John Lennon. Straightfaced and unwavering, John once more turned to engage the clearly overheated Beach Boy.
Before long Brian was back, and this time John and I made a beeline for the door.
‘Sorry about that,’ I said. John looked at me, smiled, and in that unmistakable Liverpudlian drawl just said: ‘Bless him, he’s not well, you know.’
After John’s death I was so upset that I confined myself to my room in Los Angeles for two days and wrote Empty Garden. To this day it is one of our best and most poignant songs.
BARBADOS, 1976
DRUGS had been slowly creeping into the equation – addiction by increments, if you will.
Elton readily admits that his first brush with cocaine came during the recording of the Caribou album in 1974. I don’t remember when I first encountered the powder, but I do know that it accumulated gradually until it was an omnipresent part of my life.
Let me just say that it is indeed the big lie – a horrible drug that makes you feel witty and wonderful and far smarter than you are.
What it does in reality is not that. In reality it causes you to launch into verbal diarrhoea, increases your paranoia and keeps you coming back for more. It is a highly addictive and brutal narcotic that has for decades turned well-educated men and women into saucereyed, motor-mouthed buffoons.
In the end, giving up was easy. I just woke up one day and said I was done. No rehab, no cold turkey, no nothing. I just set all the worst aspects of it front and centre, and for a couple of years referred to them if ever the inkling to do it again crossed my mind.
Adapted from Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton And Me by Bernie Taupin (Monoray, £25) to be published on September 12. To order a copy for halfprice from WH Smith,
IN TOMORROW’S DAILY MAIL MY ANGUISH OVER ELTON’S FUNERAL SONG FOR DIANA