Elton John candidly opened up about his own mortality during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show
Sir Elton John has admitted he ‘lost it’ and had to be consoled for 45 minutes when he faced up to his own mortality while recording a new song.
He came close to tears making the emotional admission during an appearance on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show alongside collaborator Brandi Carlile to promote their new track ‘Who Believes In Angels?’, set to be released in April.
He admitted that while singing it he then realised the track was about ‘my demise’ and that he questioned ‘how long have I got?’, reports the Express.
“Bernie Taupin (Elton’s lyricist) gave me a lyric for a song called, ‘When This Whole World Is Done With Me’, and I’m writing the verse (music) quite quickly, and I think this is a really lovely verse,” he said on the show.
“And then I get to the chorus, and I find that it’s about my death, my demise. And as a 76 year old man, which I was at that time, and having children and having a husband, mortality, and you think about,’How long have I got? How long? I hope I’ve got, much longer than maybe I’ve got.’
“And so by the time I got to the chorus and suddenly realised that I started singing it (and) I lost it for 45 minutes. It was a very, very heavy moment for me,” he confessed.
He continued: “After 45 minutes of being consoled, I was okay, but I recorded the next day…when you’re singing about being washed out to sea and the end of your life, it took me by surprise.
“It’s a really lovely song. I did it all in one take the next day. I just came in and did its vocal and piano at the same time.
“And I put a brass band at the end of it, because I’ve always loved brass bands, colliery bands, because they their music is rather sad – the sound of it.
“I always loved the Cup Final when they played ‘Abide With Me’ and I always used to cry no matter how old I was, because it was so beautiful.”
Elton also confessed he hadn’t seen a lot of the throwback footage used it the video for the video to the single as he doesn’t ‘really like looking at’ himself.
Reflecting on the footage he said: “I don’t really like looking at myself and going back in time, but the second time I watched that, I was really moved.
“It was, it was a journey from unhappiness and fame to epiphany and happiness and family and children.
“It’s that the arc of my life, which went down a bit, a lot, ” he quipped, “and then came back. It’s, it’s my life, and I was happy with it. Some of the footage I’d never seen.”
