NEWS
Elton John: 'I've been through everything in my life, I've been through everything you could possibly think of'
09 February 2025
On The Scott Mills Breakfast Show, Scott featured an interview with Sir Elton John and Brandi Carlile about their new album, working together, John Lennon, Glastonbury and how Elton feels about performing live again after his final tour.
Is Elton a good host?
Brandi: Oh yeah, Elton and David are brilliant hosts. We just love to sit around and have our coffee and have a goss and listen to music.
Elton: That's what we did this morning, listened to her music, listened to brand new music the like she hadn't heard. It was great. That's what we do basically, listen to music.
Elton, you have won so many awards, is there a point where you get bored of winning?
Elton: I don't think so. I mean we won, the beginning of last year, we won an Emmy which I didn't have, so I became an EGOT – an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony - and there aren't many of those and she [Brandi] only needs to win a Tony to get one as well….
Brandi: If we win the Oscar!
Elton: Oh yeah, if we win the Oscar [laughs]. Sorry, I thought you’d already won one. How awful that you haven't won one! [...] Do I get bored? No, it's been an amazing career and I always look forward and not look back. But I'm very excited about this because Brandi came to the South of France and saw a very rough cut of the documentary and started work on the song. And originally the documentary was going to be called Farewell Yellow Brick Road which was a bit boring. And then of course when this song was finished and we recorded it, we thought it's all about the documentary, it's about my life and how it turned around, it's never too late to do anything and it worked out so beautifully.
Scott comments that he hadn't ever seen most of the footage in the documentary
Elton: Well I hadn't seen most of it as well! I mean, the John Lennon footage, I’d seen some of it, but not all of it!
Scott asks Elton about his close friendship with John Lennon
Elton: Well, it was a wonderful friendship and a wonderful evening. John’s ever last performance, last ever performance rather…. Yeah, it just brought back so many memories for me.
Scott asks Elton about his close friendship with John Lennon
Elton: Well, it was a wonderful friendship and a wonderful evening. John’s ever last performance, last ever performance rather…. Yeah, it just brought back so many memories for me. What I was most surprised about is that the music we made from 1970 - 1975 was so good! I don't listen to my stuff but we made a lot of great records. We made 13 albums in that time plus singles, plus B sides, and we toured, and we worked and the momentum was incredible.
What was the part you were most surprised to see or you didn't think existed?
Elton: I can't remember ever seeing the footage of me singing Candle in the Wind. I never watch anything about me because I just don't like to look at myself very often. The first time I saw the documentary, I was a bit tense, but the second time I saw it I really loved it and I thought it really nailed what I thought my career had been and how it’s turned out to be and that was the whole point of it, you know, it's never too late. I was in a really bad place [...] in 1975, I was in a bad place for a long time after that until I got sober in 1990. But I continued to work and music saved me. It nearly killed me, but it saved me because I didn't just hide away, I just kept producing records, however good or bad they were, I just kept doing it. And when I did get sober, it was just, my whole life turned around, I found David, we had the boys, and as you can see in the documentary I'm the happiest man in the world and the luckiest.
Scott: So you don’t listen to any old Elton songs?
Elton: No I never, wouldn’t go and put my old music on. I’ve had to approve a live album that’s just coming out for Record Store Day that I did at The Rainbow in 1977 [...] with Ray Cooper and it just astounded me how great it was. It was amazing! So I had to listen to that, but actually I really enjoyed it and I was quite surprised how good it was – he said modestly, but I was!
Scott: The last track [on the album], can you tell us a bit about that
Elton: Well it’s called When This Whole World Is Done With Me [...] and this song, I started writing it and I thought, ‘Oh that’s a very a nice verse’ [...] and then I got to the chorus and I twigged what it was about and I broke down because it’s about my death, it’s about mortality and when you get to the late 70s you think about mortality especially when you have children and a great husband, you think, ‘Well, I hope I’ve got a few more years left.’ And so this really affected me and I sobbed for about 45 minutes, and then I put the piano down and the vocal and Andrew the producer said, ‘No no no, this isn’t the day to do it. You come back tomorrow, you sit down at the piano and you sing it and play it at the same time’, which I did. That is what happened, it’s the first take, the first vocal and I sang it live. It was a very important song for me to sing. People say it’s a bit doom-laden that song, I say it’s just about life and death. That’s all it is.
Scott: A couple of the artists that you’ve supported won at the Grammys - Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charlie XCX, do you have a message for those people?
Elton - Last year, was an incredible year for female artists. I can’t think of any male artist who did what they did. You had Taylor Swift with the incredible tour and success of the album. You had Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eillish, Chappell, Charlie XCX – amazing. And then you had Gracie Abrams, and all the songs were good. I can’t remember a year when the pop songs were so good for a long time. Really great songs. Luckily, I got to see Chappell Roan in concert in London and I met her for the first time, but I’d facetimed her all the time because we became friends. She was fabulous, she’s incredible.
Scott: So do you think pop music in a great place at the moment?
Elton: I do, I really do, I think the level of quality. You can tell because the Top 20 never moves, it’s the same songs, but the songs, they last. I didn’t get fed up with Espresso and I didn’t get fed up with Apple by Charlie XCX. I still play those records and they came out quite a while ago.
Brandi: And they’ve happened simultaneous to a resurgence in kind of awareness and respect for Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, everybody is thinking and reading a lot about them as they re-enter the zeitgeist, so I’m seeing a lot of reference to those artists in some of these pop stars and some of the great music they’re making too, which is so exciting for me.
Scott: People think Sabrina came out of nowhere, but she’sbeen working hard for years…
Elton: This is her 6th album! It’s Chappell’s second album. I forgot to mention RAYE of course who I absolutely adore and Your Oscar Winning Tears is one of my favourite songs which is beginning to happen in America. There’s so much out there, so many great female singers.
Scott: Brandi, what did Elton’s support mean early on in your career?
Brandi: It meant really big things for me, it was life affirming having that kind of sort of support from somebody who birthed the concept of writing music for me. It meant that I was doing a good job and that maybe on some level he recognised that influence, so it was huge. You take it with you your whole life. And for it to have turned into this is really incredible, these are great times for me.
Elton: It happened to me as well. When I first started my career and went to America, Neil Diamond introduced me at the Troubadour, Leon Russell was in the audience. I met Bob Dylan, I met Brian Wilson, George Harrison sent me a telegram, the band came to see me very early on. It gives you a ratification that was you are doing is good. And what she was doing was really good. [...] You have to do that. It’s so gratifying to help new artists, she’s not a new artist any more, but she’s a major artist. [...] After Glastonbury I thought, ‘I want to make this record.’ But when I got to make it, I arrived, I was exhausted, tired, grumpy, it’s all on film! [all laugh] She pushed me, Andrew pushed me, Bernie pushed me. I didn’t want to make the same kind of record that I’d made years before. I wanted it to be fresh, I wanted it to be exciting, I wanted it to be vital [...] and she put up with so much from me.
Brandi: I mean, yeah, [all laugh] it was kind of iconic. It was what you’d hope! It really was watching a masterclass, a master work at a level that’s hard to even really conceptualise nowadays.
Scott asks Elton about Steve Wright helping Elton get his first number one hit:
I had a song from an album called Sleeping with the Past, and A-Side was Healing Hands and the B-Side was Sacrifice. Steve couldn't believe that Sacrifice was not the A-Side [...] so in the end he campaigned and the record company went with it, to flip it over and Sacrifice became the single, the A-Side, and it was my first solo number one record in England. I'd had one with Kiki Dee with Don't Go Breaking My Heart, but this was the first one for me. And he supported me all throughout my career, he had such a knowledge of music and a love of music, like Johnnie Walker too and they’re two giants of radio that have gone. [...] It was for me, a terrible loss for radio and Johnnie Walker’s exactly the same.
Scott: Lewis Capaldi has discussed his imposter syndrome and the conversations Elton’s had with him. Does that advice come from your own experience?
Elton: I think so. I mean I've been through everything in my life, I've been through everything you could possibly think of . But when you get young artists like Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi and they're having a little bit of a problem coping with what's going on, I can help them. I can put my arm around them and say, ‘Listen its ok. Do things on your own speed. Don't be told you have to do a record, you have to… just do things at your own speed.’ [...] I mean they’re both really great writers [...] And you know, Lewis will make a record when he needs to make a record and Sam’s got a new one more or less out now, so it's just wonderful to see that they don't feel pressure to make another record, which record companies used to do, and they can do things when they want to. And that's the whole creative process, doing things when you feel like it.
Scott: Have there been times when you’ve doubted yourself?
Elton: On this album. I came into this album with huge doubt.
Brandi: Me too.
Elton: I mean the beginning of this album is not easy. I had more doubt on this record than I've ever had in my life.
Scott: Why do you think that was?
Elton: I don't know, I just wanted it to be special. And you can't guarantee when you walk into a studio that you're gonna come out with something special. [...] But if I'd have been on my own without Brandi and Berni and Andrew, this record would never have got made. It was the combination of all the energy in the room, all the aggravation, all the anxiety, pushed us to make electric music. And I could never have got through it without them because I was in a very very dark place of doubt, I was tired, I wasn't feeling well and after I got through that weak period of feeling like that, it just flew and it was just amazing.
On his final tour:
Those last few shows in America were just magical, [...] we knew it was gonna end on a high, but all the performances before Dodgers Stadium were just of that quality and then we came back to England and we did Glastonbury which was unreal and then finished the tour off in Europe. The quality of the shows were exactly the same because I was so happy, and when I came off stage in Stockholm after the last show and got in the car, David said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I feel so happy.’ We went out on the high that I wanted to do.
Scott: Elton, I hope you are getting to spend more time with the family, which was the plan wasn’t it?
Elton: I am and it's wonderful. I don't miss playing live at all. I do not miss playing live. Fact. I do not miss it one iota. I've done some private shows where I, you know, to keep my chops ready, and that's been great. But no, I don't miss it, I dread it. I have to keep playing music and I will make other records and I will be doing different sorts of records [...] It is the end of the live music, yes.
Is Elton a good host?
Brandi: Oh yeah, Elton and David are brilliant hosts. We just love to sit around and have our coffee and have a goss and listen to music.
Elton: That's what we did this morning, listened to her music, listened to brand new music the like she hadn't heard. It was great. That's what we do basically, listen to music.
Elton, you have won so many awards, is there a point where you get bored of winning?
Elton: I don't think so. I mean we won, the beginning of last year, we won an Emmy which I didn't have, so I became an EGOT – an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony - and there aren't many of those and she [Brandi] only needs to win a Tony to get one as well….
Brandi: If we win the Oscar!
Elton: Oh yeah, if we win the Oscar [laughs]. Sorry, I thought you’d already won one. How awful that you haven't won one! [...] Do I get bored? No, it's been an amazing career and I always look forward and not look back. But I'm very excited about this because Brandi came to the South of France and saw a very rough cut of the documentary and started work on the song. And originally the documentary was going to be called Farewell Yellow Brick Road which was a bit boring. And then of course when this song was finished and we recorded it, we thought it's all about the documentary, it's about my life and how it turned around, it's never too late to do anything and it worked out so beautifully.
Scott comments that he hadn't ever seen most of the footage in the documentary
Elton: Well I hadn't seen most of it as well! I mean, the John Lennon footage, I’d seen some of it, but not all of it!
Scott asks Elton about his close friendship with John Lennon
Elton: Well, it was a wonderful friendship and a wonderful evening. John’s ever last performance, last ever performance rather…. Yeah, it just brought back so many memories for me.
Scott asks Elton about his close friendship with John Lennon
Elton: Well, it was a wonderful friendship and a wonderful evening. John’s ever last performance, last ever performance rather…. Yeah, it just brought back so many memories for me. What I was most surprised about is that the music we made from 1970 - 1975 was so good! I don't listen to my stuff but we made a lot of great records. We made 13 albums in that time plus singles, plus B sides, and we toured, and we worked and the momentum was incredible.
What was the part you were most surprised to see or you didn't think existed?
Elton: I can't remember ever seeing the footage of me singing Candle in the Wind. I never watch anything about me because I just don't like to look at myself very often. The first time I saw the documentary, I was a bit tense, but the second time I saw it I really loved it and I thought it really nailed what I thought my career had been and how it’s turned out to be and that was the whole point of it, you know, it's never too late. I was in a really bad place [...] in 1975, I was in a bad place for a long time after that until I got sober in 1990. But I continued to work and music saved me. It nearly killed me, but it saved me because I didn't just hide away, I just kept producing records, however good or bad they were, I just kept doing it. And when I did get sober, it was just, my whole life turned around, I found David, we had the boys, and as you can see in the documentary I'm the happiest man in the world and the luckiest.
Scott: So you don’t listen to any old Elton songs?
Elton: No I never, wouldn’t go and put my old music on. I’ve had to approve a live album that’s just coming out for Record Store Day that I did at The Rainbow in 1977 [...] with Ray Cooper and it just astounded me how great it was. It was amazing! So I had to listen to that, but actually I really enjoyed it and I was quite surprised how good it was – he said modestly, but I was!
Scott: The last track [on the album], can you tell us a bit about that
Elton: Well it’s called When This Whole World Is Done With Me [...] and this song, I started writing it and I thought, ‘Oh that’s a very a nice verse’ [...] and then I got to the chorus and I twigged what it was about and I broke down because it’s about my death, it’s about mortality and when you get to the late 70s you think about mortality especially when you have children and a great husband, you think, ‘Well, I hope I’ve got a few more years left.’ And so this really affected me and I sobbed for about 45 minutes, and then I put the piano down and the vocal and Andrew the producer said, ‘No no no, this isn’t the day to do it. You come back tomorrow, you sit down at the piano and you sing it and play it at the same time’, which I did. That is what happened, it’s the first take, the first vocal and I sang it live. It was a very important song for me to sing. People say it’s a bit doom-laden that song, I say it’s just about life and death. That’s all it is.
Scott: A couple of the artists that you’ve supported won at the Grammys - Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charlie XCX, do you have a message for those people?
Elton - Last year, was an incredible year for female artists. I can’t think of any male artist who did what they did. You had Taylor Swift with the incredible tour and success of the album. You had Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eillish, Chappell, Charlie XCX – amazing. And then you had Gracie Abrams, and all the songs were good. I can’t remember a year when the pop songs were so good for a long time. Really great songs. Luckily, I got to see Chappell Roan in concert in London and I met her for the first time, but I’d facetimed her all the time because we became friends. She was fabulous, she’s incredible.
Scott: So do you think pop music in a great place at the moment?
Elton: I do, I really do, I think the level of quality. You can tell because the Top 20 never moves, it’s the same songs, but the songs, they last. I didn’t get fed up with Espresso and I didn’t get fed up with Apple by Charlie XCX. I still play those records and they came out quite a while ago.
Brandi: And they’ve happened simultaneous to a resurgence in kind of awareness and respect for Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, everybody is thinking and reading a lot about them as they re-enter the zeitgeist, so I’m seeing a lot of reference to those artists in some of these pop stars and some of the great music they’re making too, which is so exciting for me.
Scott: People think Sabrina came out of nowhere, but she’sbeen working hard for years…
Elton: This is her 6th album! It’s Chappell’s second album. I forgot to mention RAYE of course who I absolutely adore and Your Oscar Winning Tears is one of my favourite songs which is beginning to happen in America. There’s so much out there, so many great female singers.
Scott: Brandi, what did Elton’s support mean early on in your career?
Brandi: It meant really big things for me, it was life affirming having that kind of sort of support from somebody who birthed the concept of writing music for me. It meant that I was doing a good job and that maybe on some level he recognised that influence, so it was huge. You take it with you your whole life. And for it to have turned into this is really incredible, these are great times for me.
Elton: It happened to me as well. When I first started my career and went to America, Neil Diamond introduced me at the Troubadour, Leon Russell was in the audience. I met Bob Dylan, I met Brian Wilson, George Harrison sent me a telegram, the band came to see me very early on. It gives you a ratification that was you are doing is good. And what she was doing was really good. [...] You have to do that. It’s so gratifying to help new artists, she’s not a new artist any more, but she’s a major artist. [...] After Glastonbury I thought, ‘I want to make this record.’ But when I got to make it, I arrived, I was exhausted, tired, grumpy, it’s all on film! [all laugh] She pushed me, Andrew pushed me, Bernie pushed me. I didn’t want to make the same kind of record that I’d made years before. I wanted it to be fresh, I wanted it to be exciting, I wanted it to be vital [...] and she put up with so much from me.
Brandi: I mean, yeah, [all laugh] it was kind of iconic. It was what you’d hope! It really was watching a masterclass, a master work at a level that’s hard to even really conceptualise nowadays.
Scott asks Elton about Steve Wright helping Elton get his first number one hit:
I had a song from an album called Sleeping with the Past, and A-Side was Healing Hands and the B-Side was Sacrifice. Steve couldn't believe that Sacrifice was not the A-Side [...] so in the end he campaigned and the record company went with it, to flip it over and Sacrifice became the single, the A-Side, and it was my first solo number one record in England. I'd had one with Kiki Dee with Don't Go Breaking My Heart, but this was the first one for me. And he supported me all throughout my career, he had such a knowledge of music and a love of music, like Johnnie Walker too and they’re two giants of radio that have gone. [...] It was for me, a terrible loss for radio and Johnnie Walker’s exactly the same.
Scott: Lewis Capaldi has discussed his imposter syndrome and the conversations Elton’s had with him. Does that advice come from your own experience?
Elton: I think so. I mean I've been through everything in my life, I've been through everything you could possibly think of . But when you get young artists like Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi and they're having a little bit of a problem coping with what's going on, I can help them. I can put my arm around them and say, ‘Listen its ok. Do things on your own speed. Don't be told you have to do a record, you have to… just do things at your own speed.’ [...] I mean they’re both really great writers [...] And you know, Lewis will make a record when he needs to make a record and Sam’s got a new one more or less out now, so it's just wonderful to see that they don't feel pressure to make another record, which record companies used to do, and they can do things when they want to. And that's the whole creative process, doing things when you feel like it.
Scott: Have there been times when you’ve doubted yourself?
Elton: On this album. I came into this album with huge doubt.
Brandi: Me too.
Elton: I mean the beginning of this album is not easy. I had more doubt on this record than I've ever had in my life.
Scott: Why do you think that was?
Elton: I don't know, I just wanted it to be special. And you can't guarantee when you walk into a studio that you're gonna come out with something special. [...] But if I'd have been on my own without Brandi and Berni and Andrew, this record would never have got made. It was the combination of all the energy in the room, all the aggravation, all the anxiety, pushed us to make electric music. And I could never have got through it without them because I was in a very very dark place of doubt, I was tired, I wasn't feeling well and after I got through that weak period of feeling like that, it just flew and it was just amazing.
On his final tour:
Those last few shows in America were just magical, [...] we knew it was gonna end on a high, but all the performances before Dodgers Stadium were just of that quality and then we came back to England and we did Glastonbury which was unreal and then finished the tour off in Europe. The quality of the shows were exactly the same because I was so happy, and when I came off stage in Stockholm after the last show and got in the car, David said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I feel so happy.’ We went out on the high that I wanted to do.
Scott: Elton, I hope you are getting to spend more time with the family, which was the plan wasn’t it?
Elton: I am and it's wonderful. I don't miss playing live at all. I do not miss playing live. Fact. I do not miss it one iota. I've done some private shows where I, you know, to keep my chops ready, and that's been great. But no, I don't miss it, I dread it. I have to keep playing music and I will make other records and I will be doing different sorts of records [...] It is the end of the live music, yes.
