“Rocketman”: A Fantasia that Soars
I’m 15 and worried about how far back I am in the misty early morning line outside a Southern California suburban Sears. The long queue will wend through the appliances section, down a popcorn-strewn escalator and into the basement where the magic Ticketron computer is sputtering out tickets for Elton John at the Forum in 1974. The tension is great, but my friends and I emerge lucky. I wave my ticket like I’m Charlie Bucket who just found out he will go to Willy Wonka’s factory, but in this case the candy will all be in the sparkling costumes and music when we see ‘The Bitch is Back’ tour (though I’m not be allowed to call it that around my mother) and our guide will be a mischievous host who in his far-shyer days was first known as Reginald Dwight.
I’m 17 and I’ve just driven back to school from The Wherehouse record store, an orange plastic bag around Elton’s newest release, “Captain Fantastic and the Brown-Dirt Cowboy.” My English teacher is helping me decode the hyperactive cartoon cover art on the sleeves, pointing out that the running clocks are most likely a reference to Dali. (I’ve got to check this Dali guy out!) I pour through the comic book included with the record (could Elton be more generous?!) that tells the origin story of how he met his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin (they’re superheroes!) Drunk on constant replays of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”and “Writing”, I get into an argument with a classmate about which John is the greatest songwriter: Lennon or Elton? I fall passionately into the Captain’s camp.
Just graduated from high school, my friend Scott and I have come up with an unmissable idea: we offer to help homeowners mark the bicentennial by painting their address curb numbers with red, white and blue stenciling. Our go-to song on Scott’s El Camino radio as we turn down manicured streets is, of course, “Philadelphia Freedom.”
And yet maybe seven years later, when Elton John has a mini-comeback with “I’m Still Standing”, I’m at a bar and I stifle a yawn. I’m bored, maybe a little embarrassed, at what I perceive as the desperation of the video. Having proudly bought into punk and new-wave ethos, I perceived John’s music as remnants of a bloated seventies. I’ll still buy his records (in secret) and hope for a deep cut that I can grab on to (I recommend ‘I Am Your Robot’ and his tribute to…
