‘There were several roads nearby, but it did not take Dorothy long to find the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time, she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City; her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow roadbed.’
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, 1900
July 1973. It can now be confirmed. Elton John’s rocket ship has officially left Earth’s atmosphere. His latest hit-laden album, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, released at the start of the year, is his second in a row to top the charts in both Britain and America. Now his uncharacteristically barnstorming new single Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting is in the UK Top 10, and Elton is on his way to becoming an authentic rock god – bigger than The Beatles; stranger than the Stones; more glitter than Gary. The transformation begun when Crocodile Rock, already a hit here, gave him his first US No.1 single in February. In Britain, just 12 months before, Elton was still a one-hit wonder known for Your Song. In America his fame was more widespread but still anchored in bearded singer-songwriter mode, respectfully bespectacled crooner of Your Song and its more knowing companion Tiny Dancer.
Saturday Night’s Alright is his fifth major hit since Rocket Man unlocked the doors to the world’s singles charts the previous summer. Resulting TV appearances sporting ever more bizarre eyewear and a no-limits attitude to on-stage costumery unseen since the diamond daze of Liberace have transformed public perception of the singer from earnest musical artisan to glammed-up, arenaheadlining rock star.
Elton John is 26 and will never be so high again. High in the charts, high on the recent launch of his own record label, Rocket Records, high on his new name, now legally changed to Elton Hercules John. (Hercules because it was the name of the horse in the TV sitcom Steptoe And Son and Elton was a fan, true story.) Soon to be even higher on a new grand passion: cocaine.
Inside, though, he is still chubby four-eyeddespite becoming the biggest-selling star in the world in the early 70s, he was always filled with “self-loathing”.
