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When Elton John refused to play the piano on a song

Monicel
When Elton John refused to play the piano on a song

Elton John - Piano - Greatest Hits

(Credits: Far Out / Album artwork)

In the 1970s, Elton John’s life changed. At the beginning of the decade, he was a pianist doing the rounds of jazz bars and pubs, trying to make a name for himself. In the end, he was a global star. But with that kind of rapid rise, inevitably comes a mental battle. So, in 1977, John simply didn’t want to play the piano anymore.

With each passing year of the 1970s, things got crazier and crazier for Elton John. It started with his early albums, where each of his early releases brought him closer to the sound that would make his name. He was fusing classic honky tonk piano with pop and rock and roll, slowly but surely creating a sound that would become incredibly successful.

This test came quickly as, from 1972, his album Honky Chateau it was the start of a streak of seven consecutive number one albums. As each new record was released to great sales and acclaim, his star only seemed to rise and rise, quickly making him one of the UK’s favorite acts.

He was booked and busy, as suddenly he was no longer playing pubs, but playing big shows all over the world. In addition to being constantly in the studio during this incredibly prolific period, he built his reputation with a relentless schedule of concerts and appearances.

Booming fame like that is hard enough to handle, but combine it with worsening drug addiction and alcoholism, and it’s a recipe for disaster. While John’s career soared, so did his substance abuse. “That’s sad: I’d stay up, smoke joints, drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker, and then I’d stay up for three days and then go to sleep for a day. and half, get up, and because I had really hungry, because I hadn’t eaten anything, I’d binge and have like three bacon sandwiches, a pot of ice cream, and then throw it up, because I got bulimic. and then do it all again,” she said in 2020 , giving a glimpse of the private hell he lived in amid his blooming public glory.

“When I look back I shudder at the behavior and what I was doing to myself,” he said. He must have been absolutely exhausted, so it makes perfect sense that at the end of the decade, the musician wanted a break.

While still working in the studio, producer Thom Bell noticed John’s exhaustion when they began working together in 1977. “When I first met Elton, he said, ‘Look man, I’m tired I want you to do it all… I want you to write, I want you to play. Just say when I have to sing,’” he recalled. When they were working on the song ‘Mama Can’t Buy You Love’, John didn’t want to play the piano.

For once in his career, he didn’t want to do anything but what he was told, happy to hand over full control to someone else just so he could rest for a while.

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