For over 50 years, Bernie Taupin andhave enjoyed one of the most fruitful and enduring partnerships in pop history. And while the latter artist may be the more flamboyant and fame-seeking of the pair, it’s Taupin who’s written the words we all sing along to when we cue up “Your Song,” “Rocket Man,” or “Tiny Dancer.”Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me
“It was pretty early on that Reg tested the waters. We were inseparable, joined at the hip, and completely the inhabitants of our own world. So it was only natural that he would add to the confusion that must have been raging in his psyche by placing his hand on my thigh. This was done almost clinically, as if he felt it necessary, but at the same time wanting to get it over with.
“It all changed with an intervention after Elton, in a staged cry for help, opened all the windows, stuck his head in the gas oven, and awaited a dramatic response. Perhaps due to the unorthodox nature of his attempt, gas on low and an embroidered pillow to rest his head on, sympathy was not forthcoming. Obviously not the reaction he craved, I laughed out loud while Linda merely looked down at him, rolled her eyes, and walked out.
“So much has been written about Elton’s debut at the Troubadour that I’m loath to repeat the obvious. The celebrity turnout has been touted, but in all honesty I can’t recall it being excessive,” he writes. “In the years following, if everyone who claims to have been present during that week was actually there, we could have played Dodger Stadium instead of waiting until 1975.
In one particularly amusing slight, he writes of Andy Warhol: “Unfortunately, while Warhol’s work was groundbreaking and captivating, his personality, most certainly, was not. Talking to Andy was like conversing with an eight-year-old girl. … If dull is how he wanted to be perceived, he came through with flying colors.”Taupin recalls that in 1974, John Lennon lost a bet to John that subsequently “found the former Beatle in the unavoidable position of having to join Mr.
Princess Margaret, Taupin writes, “homed in on my fashion malfunction like a buzzard on a gut wagon. ‘Did we have an accident?’ she inquired dryly.’” “It was as obvious as the nose on your face that he was vain, egotistical, and brash,” Taupin writes of the producer. “He may just have been the crudest man I’ve ever met. Everything that came out of his mouth was either sexual innuendo or just blatant filth. It was unsettling enough to see him so aroused by the female actors, but this doubled with his observations as to their anatomy and sexual capabilities was nauseating.