Well, I won't let myself look at it, I fucking hate it so much. It's a sad indictment of the way we live now, what we watch now, what we take into our brains and let ourselves look at. Or Day of the Locust – it's very indicative of what the hideous celebrity culture we live in now has become, which I abhor. “That's what I was thinking about when I was writing it. “Well, it could be Lindsay Lohan, it could be whoever, y'know?” says John. It's a rueful rumination on the precipitous and two-edged nature of fame and celebrity, the way that those at the pinnacle are always in open sight, and always on the verge of plummeting. It's all about communication, about people talking to each other and becoming more tolerant.”Īnother stand-out is the title track, which closes the album in a tone equal parts sad, soulful and cynical, like a cross between Ray Charles and Randy Newman. For example, in America the Republicans can moan all they want, but they didn't get elected, because they're out of touch. “We've got a long, long way to go, but the world is gradually changing. When you look at the world, at places like Russia in the current climate, at the things coming out of some of these countries, especially in Africa, you just shudder and think, 'thank God I live here'. It's still got a long way to go, but I'm living in an era when my government has let me have a civil partnership, which I had never dreamed of, and it's let me now, as of next year, be able to wed my partner if I so choose to. Things, I suggest, have clearly changed a great deal since Wilde's persecution – but does he find the UK much more or less tolerant than other countries now? ![]() It's brilliantly rendered in a piano setting which manages to combine furtiveness and decisive momentum, as if John had tapped into the very soul of a song which clearly means a great deal to him. “Oscar Wilde Gets Out” is one of the stand-out tracks on the album, a sketch of the writer being released from Reading Gaol and immediately heading for France. I've never questioned it, it works, and it is rather Twilight Zone stuff, because he's not there.” “He gives me the lyrics about a week before we go into the studio, I don't look at them, I go into the studio, put them on the piano, think which one sounds most exciting to do first – which was 'Oscar Wilde Gets Out', because the title made me think, 'what the fuck is this about?' – and I just go from there. “It's a silly old thing, but we've always written the same way,” says John. As ever, John's settings for Taupin's lyrics are instinctively right, in a manner which baffles even him. Written in two sessions in 2012 and earlier this year, the songs on The Diving Board mine some familiar veins – Bernie Taupin's fascination with Americana comes through in tracks like the Dust Bowl narrative “A Town Called Jubilee” and “The Ballad of Blind Tom”, while “Oceans Away”, “Voyeur” and “Home Again” offer thoughtful reflections on things such as ageing, the solace of companionship and the interplay of wanderlust and homesickness. ![]() ![]() So I went on antibiotics for about two weeks, came down here to rest, and I was going to have it done in England on 19 August, but then I thought, 'Bugger this, I just want to get rid of it', and went to a doctor in Monaco who did it, and now I'm recuperating from it. I was really lucky – if I'd have been on a plane and it burst, I could have got peritonitis and died. Then I had a scan, and they said, 'no, it's your appendix, but it's gone up behind your intestines, that's why it didn't feel like your appendix'. ![]() I did nine shows, 24 flights, and the summer ball at our house, feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. “I had this pain that everyone thought was my colon. “I had a burst appendix for six weeks, but for two weeks I didn't know I had it,” he reveals. An inveterate workaholic, he had at first ignored the pain and just got on with business. He's due to play tennis tomorrow, and his manner is as ebullient as ever, the rapidity of his conversation confirmation that it will take a lot more than a pesky appendix to blunt his enthusiasm for life. At his home in the South of France, Sir Elton John is recuperating from his recent operation.
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