Spanning more than four decades, David Frost’s interviews with Elton John range from the Pinball Wizard’s darkest hours—including the depths of his drug addiction—to the happiest days of his life. Here’s the complete story of how a timid kid named Reginald Dwight became a rock-and-roll legend.
Spanning more than four decades, David Frost’s interviews with Elton John range from the Pinball Wizard’s darkest hours—including the depths of his drug addiction—to the happiest days of his life. Here’s the complete story of how a timid kid named Reginald Dwight became a rock-and-roll legend.
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David Frost: They will have, they're terrific. They will have checked you out before and then it must have just suddenly gone.
Crew: It's something that we checked for and then just sometimes it happens. When we started rolling the tape heads got caught. It's just one of those things.
David Frost: Sorry about the delay, Elton. Okay? And then there were other domestic influences on the piano and then the American influences on your piano...
Elton John: I mean, perfection is something I've always striven for. And you're never going to be perfect and you're never going to find the perfect song. Always been in search of the perfect song. And when you've written one that you think is really great, you think wow, maybe I can write, I know I can write one better than that. It's that, the sense of perfection. We're, we're all flawed. It's just that I realise what my flaws are now… I just actually believe that there is something that's kept me here for some reason. I mean, clinically, I should be dead
David Frost: Really, really?
Elton John: Emotionally, emotionally, I was, emotionally dead. I was like a carcass David shipped around from country to country wheeled out and playing Your Song. 'Here he is again, roll up before he collapses!'
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Wilfred Frost: That, of course, is the unmistakable voice of the great Elton John, reflecting incredibly openly about some of the major lows of his life in a television interview with David Frost in 1991.
David Frost -- for those of who might be unfamiliar -- was one of the world’s pre-eminent broadcast journalists: Over a five-decade career, he’d interview dozens of presidents and prime ministers, famously coaxing an apology out of the disgraced U.S. president Richard Nixon.
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Richard Nixon: I let down my friends. I let down the country. I let down our system of government. I let the American people down. And I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.
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Wilfred Frost: He would record an astronomical number of interviews in his lifetime, well over 10,000, and not just with politicians. He spoke intimately with the world’s top artists, musicians, actors and sports heroes too.
But above and beyond all of that - to me...
He was just dad.
My name is Wilfred Frost, and like my dad, I’m a broadcast journalist.
I also look after Dad’s body of work, and since he died 8 years ago, I have spent countless hours recovering and restoring his past interviews - many of which had been lost for decades.
In season 1 of The Frost Tapes, we focused on interviews that had astounding resonance with current events: Racial protests, women’s activist movements, and — of course — presidential elections. We even discovered an interview with Joe Biden that HAD NEVER BEEN BROADCAST.
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Joe Biden: The role of a president then, it seems to me beyond presiding over government, is the lead of society to realize what its potential is. And, and I think, David, there's a whole generation of Americans that are waiting for their chance.
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Wilfred Frost: But for this season, we’re trying something a little different: We’re looking back at Dad’s interviews with some of the 20th century’s greatest entertainers, in particular, those he had a uniquely close relationship with – our 9 episodes are on, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jnr, Lauren Bacall, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Muhammad Ali, The Beatles, and first Elton John.
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Elton John: I know that's funny isn't it?
David Frost: All right, well, we're, we're ready to start the…
Elton John: Okay.
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Wilfred Frost: Dad wasn’t just personally close to all of our stars -- he sat down with them again, and again. SIXTEEN times with the Beatles, over 10 with Elton John and Muhammad Ali. The results? Intimate longform interviews that you simply couldn’t hear anywhere else. Dad’s interviews had a confessional-booth quality, coaxing the world’s biggest superstars to talk openly about the momentous events that shaped their lives -- and ours too, of course.
Welcome to season two of “The Frost Tapes.”
In this episode, a look inside the remarkable life of one of the world's best-selling artists: Sir Elton John.
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David Frost: Do you ever pinch yourself a bit Elton, to think back to the working class lad, or the middle class lad … when you were born were you working class or middle class?
Elton John: Working class
David Frost: Working class lad from Pinner.
Elton John: Born in a council house, 55 Pinner Hill Road. My mother came from a working class family and so did my father — and then became very successful, flight attendant and a Squadron Leader in the Air Force -- So we came from a low background and then became middle class.
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Wilfred Frost: Long before he was a singer-songwriter ... before he had sold 300 million records ... before he wrote the best-selling single in the world … Elton John was simply Reginald Dwight, a young kid of modest means born in 1947, growing up in the northwestern suburbs of London.
Between 1970 and 2005, Dad would interview Elton John ten times. And over the decades, they often returned to the story of Elton’s upbringing--particularly how his personality was shaped by his strained relationship with his father.
Listening to the hours of recordings they made together, I'm struck by how Elton - over and over - was telling my Dad about his search for a personal connection in life - and the sense of loneliness while that search was ongoing.
Here they are in conversation in 1975, shortly after Elton became a superstar.
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David Frost: To what extent do you think, Elton, that your childhood formed what you are today? I mean how much can you trace back your inspirations to your childhood, to your mother, to your father, and so on?
Elton John: I think my childhood has a great effect on what I'm doing now, in the fact that I was always suppressed as a child. My mother gave me encouragement. My father was a very big snob. He was in the Air Force. And he wouldn't let me kick the ball in the garden in case I touched the rose bushes. And I was always sort of forced to practice the piano for three hours. And he was very, very strict. And I never saw him for years on end, because he used to be going to Beirut and places like that. And so I was always very much aware that I had a very strict upbringing, and I was always very quiet and timid. I was always very fat as a child as well. So I mean, that added to my complexes and I was never, I could never get into the modern clothes. And so everyone was walking around in drainpipe trousers, here are my folks in baggy trousers, you know it all built up. And so when people say, Well, why do you wear flamboyant clothes now? And why do you do this and that I never really was allowed to do it until I was about 21 when I was my own boss anyway. So I think that that really is, I had such a miserable existence as a child and a teenager.
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Those childhood challenges clearly fascinated my Dad, who asked Elton about it in this 1991 interview, and again in 1999.
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David Frost: Were you a loner as a child, partly because of your father being away, and then the divorce and so on?
Elton John: Yeah, I was very, very withdrawn as a child. I mean, I was wheeled out at functions to play the piano. And I was aware of showing off and getting attention. But I was very timid. I was insecure. I was afraid of my father. Not because he was particularly violent to me, but I was just afraid of him. And my parents seemed to argue a lot. And I used to fear him coming home. My parents gave me the best that they could, I realise that now. But I was, I did want more affection for my father.
David Frost: Your parents really stayed together for the sake of the child didn't they really, and you, you sensed that, I guess, the tension...?
Elton John: I think they stayed together because in the 50s, it was not the done thing to get divorced, divorce was taboo. Even when my mother wanted to get divorced.I don't see my father very often, in fact I don't see him at all. I don't get on with him. But I don't, I don't hate him. I don't think we ever got on from the word go.
David Frost: And did you know, when did you know that you wanted to follow music as a career? How old were you?
Elton John: My first love was music. I'd always been fortunate enough to grow up with the records in the house, music. And I'd al- I didn't want to be a performer or a singer but maybe a keyboard player in a band, and rock'n'roll was beginning to happen. It was a very exciting time. I used to stand in the mirror and mime to Jerry Lee Lewis records. I ate, drank, and slept music all the time. I loved it. And that was what I wanted.
David Frost: Did you always have a fierce ambition that you were going to make it? Or is it a source of surprise?
Elton John: I had no ambitions to become “Elton John, superstar.” That never entered my mind. But I thought you know, maybe I could play in a band or I could, you know, work in a record shop or do something. As long as it involved in music.
During my childhood, I created my own little world sometimes when my parents were arguing, and you know, I think if you if you -- if you are a only child and you come from a broken marriage, it gives you a steely resolve to prove to one of your parents that you can, you know, you're okay ...
But I think it was because of my father's and my, my position towards each other. That gave me that steely resolve to prove to him that I could be something that you know. And that determination stays within it. It's it is still stays with me. It's just, it's like, I still have something to prove to him. But, but on the other hand, I still have something to prove to myself.
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Wilfred Frost: Eventually, Elton’s mum would remarry. His relationship with his step-father was significantly stronger, and this newfound stability helped Elton’s young musical career blossom. As a 13-year-old, he joined his first group: Bluesology.
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David Frost: How did you go about getting the first, the first real musical job was Bluesology, I suppose wasn't it?
Elton John:Well, I remember trying to form a band locally of people. And it was, we did form a band called bluesology, just a local bunch of guys, but I used to play in a pub too, a public house, when I was still at school. And I used to play there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Northwood Hills Hotel. And then I started off playing, and then I started to sing as well, and it got very popular, And I just used to play kind of all pub songs, you know, like [plays music] or whatever it was - I can only play that now! But, and then there was, then I decided to start singing so I bought a microphone and an amplifier and then I used to sing Jim Reeve songs. [Music] and everyone by that time would join in, or the king of the road [music] and Al Jolson [music] and I used to get a pound a night and then my dad, my stepfather, used to take my box around and I used to get all the loose change from people and I used to earn a lot of money that way and that paid for my first musical equipment which was a little electric piano and a microphone, an amplifier and speaker.
David Frost: And that, and that paid for that, and then what did you do next?
Elton John: Then I was at school, I decided to leave school before my A Levels and because I was offered a job as, in a music publisher in Denmark Street. And Denmark Street was Tin Pan Alley. It was kind of on its, beginning on its last legs, but I joined Mills Music as a tea boy, as a parcel wrapper-upper, the post boy and I went up in the train every day from Northwood hills and I went in, and it was just a connection in the music business. And while I was at Mills Music we made a couple of records as bluesology, one of them was ‘Come Back Baby,’ that was the first record that I've ever made. And that was written by myself.
David Frost:Can you remember any of that?
Elton John: (Plays music) Oh it was dreadful, but you see the thing was, I wasn't the singer of the band. Stuart A. Brown was the singer in the band but they didn't like his voice, so I had to sing, and wrote the song, and I wrote all the words.
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Wilfred Frost: Elton was sitting at the piano for large portions of Dad’s 1991 interview - his own grand piano at his home in Windsor - no less - with Dad leaning over enthralled.
I’ll be dipping back into that conversation and the music throughout the episode.
Through the late 1960s, as the singer of Bluesology, Elton was still Reggie Dwight. And although he was starting to move on from his broken family life, he continued to struggle with his mental health.
Many are aware of Elton’s struggles once he found fame, but I hadn’t grasped the extent of those struggles before he found success too, until I found a bootleg copy of this previously lost 1978 interview just a few months ago.
A fan had thankfully recorded the audio onto a cassette from the original broadcast. The master video tapes sadly no longer exist.
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David Frost: There was another quote of yours that I found where you said that you made a suicide attempt about the age of 21.
Elton John: Well, it was ridiculous. I mean, I got the pillow, went into the kitchen, switched the gas oven on. And I was unconscious when they found me, I'd only been unconscious for about 10 minutes, but I'd left the windows wide open. So I mean, not intentionally, I must admit. I did actually swallow 83 sleeping tablets about two years ago. My parents were in Los Angeles and I came out to the pool. I said, that's it. I've taken 80 sleeping tablets. And my mother said, “suppose I'd better get my suitcase and go home then” and I was sort of crying out for them to say 'Oh my God, we better get someone' and they completely ignored me.
I was at sort of desperation point I thought, I got to get more attention for myself as if I wasn't getting enough attention as it was, and eventually it hurt a lot of people and I was very sorry for doing it.
David Frost: You once said that inanimate objects, giving you more happiness than human beings ever had.
Elton John: I feel more secure around things that I've had for years than I do around people. I've got loads of close friends, fantastic friends, and yet I've got no one close to me.
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Wilfred Frost: Elton had tried to open himself up to someone before, in the late 60s, when he became engaged to a woman named Linda Woodrow. But, their relationship quickly grew tense as he remained focused on his music.
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Elton John: I was living with a lady for about six months, who didn't really like my music. She kept telling me I was rubbish, and I'd never make it! And she was always saying you'd better be off being a bank manager or something. I got very depressed. And I was due to marry her and I'd got the cake and everything like that and the flat and the furniture and I went out to a nightclub and met someone -- Long John Baldry who I was backing at the time -- and he said you're mad to get married because she doesn't appreciate your music. He knew I was totally wrapped up in music. So I went home and said “that's it. It's off.” And it more or less saved my life because otherwise, if I'd have got married at that particular point in time I think it would have been goodbye Elton John. I wasn't Elton John at the time I was.
David Frost: But were you still Reg Dwight?
Elton John: I was still Reg Dwight, yes.
David Frost: But gosh, I can't see you as a bank manager either.
Elton John: Well, I look like a bank manager. I always say when people say what do you think, what do you describe yourself? I say well, like a freaked-out bank manager. I'm not your actual Mick Jagger or anybody, or your David Bowie. I'm sort of like the boy next door who freaked-out all of a sudden.
David Frost: In fact it was from Long John Baldry that you got part of your name?
Elton John: Yeah, I got the John part. The saxophone player in our band was called Elton and I wanted, when it was time for me to choose a name... because Reg Dwight, I didn't think would exactly set the world on fire as a stage name. I just picked Elton because actually, I hadn't heard of anybody called Elton. I thought nobody's got the name of Elton. It's like you had, I wanted to pick a name that nobody had. Like there's only one Elvis, right. I mean, there has been really only one Elvis. And I thought well it was an easy name to identify with. And in hindsight, it was a good choice.
David Frost: Very good choice. In hindsight, of course, it was a wonderful choice, teaming up with Bernie Taupin in 1967. Who wrote, wrote your lyrics to so many of your great songs and so on.
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Wilfred Frost: Just before he decided to break off his engagement, Elton had seen an advertisement in NME magazine that Liberty Records was seeking new talent. Elton decided to write-in and audition.
But was not immediately successful.
After the audition, he confessed that he did not write lyrics.
Rather than totally reject Elton, the team at Liberty handed him an envelope. As it turns out, a 17 year old aspiring songwriter had also responded to the same ad, leaving the agency with some of his freshly penned lyrics.
That night, Elton opened up the envelope and found sheets and sheets of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin. It was the beginning of one of the most fruitful artistic relationships of the 20th century.
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David Frost: And of course, the thing that fascinates everybody about that relationship, apart from the fact that it's gone on so long, is that the lyrics come first, and not the music, which is not unique, but it is the exception to the rule.
Elton John: It's not unique, but it's the most, A, as you say, it will be 25 years next year that we've been together, that's a long time for a songwriting partnership to last. And the songs are always usually written melodies, nice, now I write melodies after the lyrics have been given to me. So Bernie would give me a lyric. In the old days, it was handwritten. And I would get a lyric in front of me and I would look at it, find out whether I think it will be slow, fast, what I thought the music should go with the text.
David Frost: But I mean if you take something like for instance, you played the first time we ever met, I heard you playing the first, on the David Frost show, Your Song, how, take that as a specific example, what would have happened, Bernie would have hand written a lyric?
Elton John: Yeah. And, and I would have just got at it and I usually play bass chord sequences come out, I'll play. I'll fiddle around. And then I think, oh, I like that can it change... And so it's... [sings] That's not quite right, I'll change the chord [sings] And it happens very quickly, and once I get the beginning, I'm off
David Frost: In half an hour or an hour you said?
Elton John: Well, actually no, it's, in those days, it took me about 15 to 20 minutes to write it and half to an hour to memorise it, because I didn't put it on tape. I didn't put any of the songs on tape. So at one point, I had about 30 or 40 songs stockpiled in my head that I'd written by memory. So actually, the actual writing of them, the combining the melody and the text didn't take much more than 20 minutes.
David Frost: And when you got to the end of that one for instance, how wonderful life is while you're in the world, and how did you work out what you'd got to do there? You'd worked out the mood by that point of the song? The tone of it? And the how did that thought come to you?
Elton John: We lived in my parents’ apartment. And he would be in the bedroom writing lyrics. And I'd be in the living room playing the piano. And I'd finish it and I wouldn't play it to him until I was finished with it. And then I'd go in and I'd excitedly play it to him and say, Oh, isn't that great? And then as soon as that was done, I'd find, I'd start another one? It was a combination of two people that sort of, when they got together the ingredients were right.
David Frost: And what was the first, what was the first song that you and Bernie had recorded?
Elton John: The first song that I think we recorded was... a decent song, was Skyline Pigeon which was from the Empty Sky album, which is still a lovely song. And it's you know, one of the... We wrote lots of other songs before then which were sort of really esoteric, sort of gibberish. And it was, you know, you had to realise it was flowerpower at this time and a lot of pretentious high lyrics, but Skyline Pigeon was a nice song, I wanted to write, the lyrics are so beautiful. I mean, there's a shining example: A skyline pigeon is sitting there, and it's turning loose from your hands, let me fly to distant lands, over green fields, trees and mountains. So those four lines for me sound like a hymn. It's the sort of thing you sing in church. So immediately, I saw that I went, oh, let's get a chord sequence that sounds like a hymn. So the opening of the song goes. [Music] Congregation please rise!
David Frost: Oh yes!
Elton John: That's the sort of thing you look at it instantly, and think that's what that's gonna be. Sometimes he's shocked by the results of the things that he's written thinking they're going to be slow, and they're fast. But hey, listen, we've never had an argument in our 20 - over a song, he's been, to think I have the ability and the freehand to, to do whatever I like with some of these lyrics. And there must be, you know, when you write something they're very precious. 50% of the songs are his. I'm not very good at lyrics. For example, every time I do a tour, I have to rehearse and get all the old lyric sheets out. And I mean, when I hear a song on the radio, I always get the words wrong. I'm singing along with it. I'm not very good. I listen to the melody. I'm a melody man. And, but I, most people do listen to lyrics, and I do with other people's songs. I mean, there are points in your life when you must have been somewhere, you've been in love, or you've heard a song, and it stuck with you because you remember a particular occasion or a mood that you were in. And that happened to me on occasion. And usually in my case, it was very sad songs because I mean, sad songs seem to be, sometimes they stick to me like glue because I've been so unhappy sometimes.
David Frost: Sadness, sadness triggers off your muse. Your musical muse, doesn’t it. I mean, presumably, it would be more difficult to write a song while you’re angry, let’s say. But do you write better when you’re sad than when you’re happy?”
Elton John: I don’t think … I think I just write. I don’t think it makes much difference, David. I like writing sad songs., I must admit, I like sad chord sequences, like [music] minor chords, then a major, [music] and then those minor chords are always, I love those kinds of sad sad songs.
David Frost: That’s the Elton sound in a way. It’s the characteristic Elton sound, isn’t it?
Elton John: Yeah. [Music]. That’s where the classical training comes in handy because of the shape of the chords. And then there is an A flat chord, but an E flat in the bass, which is something one would have never done without musical training. I would’ve never picked that up. I owe those sort of chords to Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys because I think one of the biggest influences on my writing was The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson in particular . . . But I like writing, I love sad music. I love sad, sad things. I’ve always cried a lot, as a kid I would cry. I’ve always been very attracted to sad things, beautiful pieces of music like Enigma Variations by Elgar makes me cry. I find it very moving, I always cry when I hear it.
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Wilfred Frost: By 1970, that distinct “Elton Sound” was still unfamiliar to most people. Elton was still a nobody. In fact, he was such a nobody that his American record label--YUNI Records--had signed him for an advance of $0.00.
But, eventually, Elton’s relationship with Taupin would work its magic. In the spring of 1970, the duo would release “Border Song,”
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David Frost : While we're on the subject of songs and how they come about when Border Song came out in 1970, people said there was a lot of influence, not so much the person that but the influence there was a gospel influence. Who do you attribute that to?
Elton John: If you looked at all, all the songs I've written and the records that I made there's traces of every sort of music in there from schmaltzy ballads to rock and roll to r&b, but at the Border Song was [music] which is very classical [music] So it's a fusion. I think the Elton John album was a fusion of classical, and then sort of Black music.
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Wilfred Frost: That song would break the Billboard Top 100 in the U.S. At the same time, Elton booked his first gig stateside, playing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.
The pay for the whole band was $150.
But while the Troubadour shows didn’t boost his bank balance - they transformed his fortunes.
In the crowd was Robert Hilburn, a music critic with the LA Times. Hilburn called Elton’s music “staggeringly original” that “defies classification.”
He presciently went on that Elton was “going to be one of rock’s biggest and most important stars.”
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David Frost: Well, funnily enough, that was one of the things 1970s the historic night at the Troubadour and that review by Robert Hilburn said exactly what you've just said, in fact, he said, here's a man not only rock's got a new star, but says his music is not just one field, but he's creating his own field by mixing them all up. I mean, he said that on your, I mean, that was the change of your whole life, that was, wasn't it?
Elton John:Because of the Elton John album, and the cover, which was very dark and a little studious boy with glasses on--And because we had played live before we went, and I can't stress this importantly enough. All those years of experience playing with Baldry and all those black artists, those wonderful black singers, had given me a lot of experience. So when I went there, I thought right, you bastards, I'm going to really, you know, wait till you hear this. And it was a shock because I came out in hot pants, and a beard and Mr. Freedom type. Everything that they saw on the album cover, I wasn't on the stage. So it was a contradiction in the notes, but it was something, it was the right place at the right time. How often have we seen that?
David Frost: And that show you did, how many songs were there in the show? Was there one that really, one that really one point in the show when you knew, I've got them!
Elton John:I don't know, I was, I can't remember much about it because I was terrified. Because there are so many, there was Quincy Jones in the audience, and the second night there was Leon Russell, and at that point, Leon Russell was my biggest idol. And it seemed, you know, it seemed like a fairy story, you know, and it kind of was it was, I kept pinching myself thinking is this really happening to me. And it happened so quickly. It was kind of overnight in New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago. It was all so delightful for me, the first five years of my career, I did a lot of touring. I've made separate singles. But apart from albums and I was so enthusiastic. I was, I loved it.
I have an enormous affection for American audiences. They made me a star. And I don't know, there is, there is always the magic of playing in America.
David Frost: Did your fingers bleed for them?
Elton John: They always do, yeah. When you play as hard as I do, and I, you know, I really thump the thing. The thing, the thing, Elton John plays the thing, the thing. And of course, you're talking about days when amplification of pianos was very unsophisticated. So to get the sound out, I mean, I would play twice as hard. And I'd break my nails and the nails would go into the skin and then, and I would be in agony. But you know, after a while it wasn't agony, after a week, your hands hardened up, and I didn't mind, I was playing. I was a kid in a candy store. It was terrific fun. And it was, success came very quickly. I didn't get very big headed at that time. Because I didn't have time to think about it.
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Wilfred Frost: Elton’s success exploded. And so did his productivity. The early and mid-seventies saw him write classics such as Tiny Dancer, Honky Cat, Rocket Man, Lee-von, and Daniel. The poor boy from Pinner was suddenly rich and famous, collaborating with John Lennon and playing to sold-out crowds in Madison Square Garden.
But overall, despite the mounting fame, Elton remained remarkably straight edged in the first half of the 70s.
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David Frost: Philip Norman in his new book says at the time, you were the simplest, healthiest, most clean living performer rock had ever known. That was the beginning of that
Elton John: It changed though. [laughs]
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Wilfred Frost: In fact, an admission in Rolling Stone magazine would cause his career to plateau.
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Elton John: Every artist has these few years at the top when they can do no wrong. And I actually had the foresight to know that would happen. And I knew that I could not stay at number one forever. So I knew that there would be a levelling out. And indeed there was after 1976 my career levelled out and also, I think in America in 1976 in Rolling Stone, I said that I was bisexual, and it was something that I don't regret saying but I think it had a bit of a chilling effect on people in America that were... not surprised maybe but they didn't really want to know about it and they were, they were offended by it. I wasn't aware that they would be, but they'd certainly, it did hurt my career a lot in areas that I didn't imagine when,
David Frost: How do you mean? In what areas do you mean?
Elton John: I think it shocked a lot of people. I didn't think was a big deal, but on retrospect, there's no hiding the truth, it did hurt my career.
David Frost: And if you had your time over again, would it have hurt your career a few years later, do you think? I mean, I mean, it was just that you were early to say it really I suppose, was it?
Elton John: I just thought most people knew anyway, so I don't regret saying it at all. Nobody that I mean, people... there had been rumblings and rumours and there always are. But no one actually had come out and had the balls to ask me and the guy who interviewed me for Rolling Stone asked me and I said, “Yeah it's okay.” I didn't, I didn't really foresee the consequences that it would have.
David Frost: Do you think it's more difficult to be happy being bisexual?
Elton John: No, I don't really think so at all. I've never had any problem with my sexuality. That's one of the one of the few things I've been able to accept, in my life.
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Wilfred Frost: But from 1976 onwards, even in the face of his stratospheric rise to fame, Elton’s personal demons came to the fore, and he started to spiral out of control…
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Elton John: Even though I was communicating and having great success in front of all these thousands and thousands of people. And I was very good at it. And I was communicating. But they were far away. On a one to one level with people, face to face in a room. If I had to go into a room full of people and I didn't know them I would be petrified. And I'd really shake and I wouldn't have the confidence in myself to do that. I was still the same scared little Reg, and the insecure and shy person. And yet there was this other side of me that was acting out on stage and entertaining. But that was what I did for a living. And that was what I loved doing that. But that wasn't how you cope with normal life. That's, that's Fantasy land.
David Frost: And how do you cope with normal life when you've got to go into a room and you're terrified and you're the great Elton John? I mean, that's when you drink or you take uppers or you strengthen yourself in that way is it? Or did you just...
Elton John: I start- I didn't drink really that much before I became successful. But I did when I went to parties, I went to the opening of a wallet. I went to everything because I was having fun. But I always had a drink to make me feel more comfortable. Yeah. Because on a one to one basis, if I had a drink in my hand, I feel a little safer. So I did that. And then later on I started taking drugs. And I thought after I took drugs, that broke down all my barriers because I thought well, I can really communicate now I can make me, it made me open up, it made me talk. I would never talk before I was you know, I would be so scared. So I was under the illusion that drugs made me open up and they did to a certain extent but you know having, this was a long time ago. And I think when you first take drugs, they're enjoyable to a certain extent because they're new and I felt that I was part of the gang, I felt I'd really arrived when I started taking drugs like, yeah, I'm one of the, I'm finally I finally arrived, I take drugs so I'm finally accepted. I'm one of the in crowd. But eventually, after a lot, a lot of drinking and a lot of drug taking, it closed me right back down again, and made me the isolated, unhappy person that I've already was in first place really. I've never really known how to communicate with people on a one to one basis. I've always been afraid, my life is built on fear of not being able to show the, you know, say what I wanted to because, you know I had a strict upbringing and emotions aren't something that people...
David Frost: You don't show them
Elton John: You don't show them, no, not when you're a child. And I was, I was terrified. And I had all the success I had all the trappings and I loved that and everything but they really they didn't make me any happier, I'm a compulsive impulsive person. I can't have one drink, and I can't have one drug, and I can't have one, as you've seen, one pair of glasses, one car... that's my make up. And unfortunately it got more and more out of hand.
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Wilfred Frost: While I am well aware of the depth of Dad and Elton’s friendship, the frankness of this portion of their 1991 interview continues to astonish me, recorded so soon after he came out of rehab following 15 years of addiction.
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Elton John: I became a different person from... the 1972 to 1976 the body of work, the success, I was I think I was quite reasonable to be with then. From that point onwards from 1976 to 1991 - 1990 rather. It was a catalogue of happy times and very unhappy times, periods of sobriety, periods of intense and utter pain and distress, heightened by the fact that I took lots of drugs and drank a lot. And it got me to the position where I didn't really want to live. I used to get up in the morning and groan and say, God, I don't know. That's if I got up at all. And you know, I have so much to be grateful for. And I was so self, full of self pity. And I was so, I didn't know what to do. You know, I'm a very proud man. I couldn't ask for help. I knew there was something wrong with me. But I couldn't admit that I was wrong. And I couldn't admit that I needed to be helped. I became spiteful, I became angry, I became irritable. And I hated that. But I couldn't stop. I hated myself in the end, I really hated myself. So from you know, it was pretty sad. But it was, meanwhile the career was still going. The only thing I had to cling on to was the career. So the hits were still coming up. God knows how they were. And that's what kept me going. I mean, that love of the music. I mean, and the fact that I still was competitive. I was as strong as I was as far as my, my stamina and my will. My willpower was actually driving me in the wrong direction. My willpower was killing me. So I decided one day that maybe or someone decided for me that maybe I couldn't, I couldn't do this on my own. Maybe I'd come to the end of my tether so many times but this was about time now that if I didn't...
David Frost: When was, when was that? Which year was that, when was that?
Elton John: It was in 1990… That someone just sat me down and said, listen, I love you very much, but get - oh this is ridiculous. And I was ready to hear it. I didn't tell him to get out the room I didn't tell him to, I didn't use abusive language, I didn't lose my temper with him, I needed to hear it. There are times in life where you, you need it, but the timing has to be right. So many people have tried to tell me before Elton, for God's sake, do something, don't do this to yourself. Don't be so self destructive. You know, we love you, we love you, love you. And as I say the people who I, the thing that gets me most are the people around me and the people who have supported me, and I was letting them down. But I was letting myself down.
David Frost: And this was July 1990?
Elton John: July 1990, someone who I loved very much came and said, 'Listen, I love you. But I'm not prepared to love you anymore unless you do something about it. Because I'm just worried sick about you'.
My mother had had to move away, my family, my family, my mother and stepfather had to move to Spain, they were so upset with my behaviour. My mother said 'Oh I don't have a son anymore'. You know, when she used to ring me up, I was, couldn't be bothered to talk to her. I gave her Cartier, bracelets, Cartier rings, cars, but I didn't give her what a mother needs most from her son. And that's some time, some love, some compassion.
Elton John: I just actually believe that there is something that's kept me here for some reason. I mean, clinically, I should be dead
David Frost: Really, really?
Elton John: Emotionally, emotionally, I was, emotionally dead. I saw Elvis Presley a week before he died or about a year before he died, not a week. It could have been a week. It was, and I saw him in Washington DC. And he was, I looked into his eyes. There was nothing there. And in the end, there was nothing there with me.
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Wilfred Frost: Dad in fact reflected with Elton on what he felt about that 1991 interview years later, and Elton’s incredible honesty in it,
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Elton John: We did this interview a long time ago, and I just came out of…
David Frost: Oh, that was inspiring to people. 1991
Elton John: Yeah.
David Frost: When you would, you'd gone in for rehab or whatever it was in 1990 shortly following the death of Ryan White, wasn't it? And you would come out and and you and you and you use the word sober you've been in terms of addiction to drugs, or addiction to alcohol. You've been sober as you put it for the rest of the 90s.
Elton John: The best thing I ever did in my life.
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Wilfred Frost: Around 1990 Elton turned his life around in part thanks to the interventions of his friends and loved ones, but also as Dad just referenced because he witnessed the hardships endured by a teenager from Indiana called Ryan White. And hearing about Ryan’s struggles helped cut through the fog of his addiction.
White had been diagnosed with AIDS after he received a contaminated blood transfusion in the mid-1980s. He faced unimaginable discrimination, from being banned from school to local residents refusing to touch the newspapers he delivered to them. One day, his family even came home to find a bullet hole in their living room.
When Elton learned about White’s problems he wanted to help. He helped pay for the family’s down payment on a house when they moved out of town. He visited Ryan in the hospital when he became sick for the last time, in 1990. And when Ryan died -- just one month before his high school graduation -- Elton was one of his pallbearers, and sang at the funeral.
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David Frost: That obviously had a profound effect on you, that whole experience.
Elton John: Well, if I would be truthful, I would say that was the thing that really planted the seeds in my mind that something was drastically wrong when I went to Indianapolis to help Jeanie White, his mother, cope with the funeral. And when he was dying, cope with when he was dying that week. I was just genuinely touched by the compassion. And the... they didn't have any bitterness about what had happened to him, about the people who had treated him badly. And about the one, the horrible thing that had happened to him, the most terrible bad luck, cruel, cruel thing that happened to their family. And they were just gracious and they were decent Christian people, they were just wonderful. And I thought, God Elton, these people have been through so much. And I would walk into a hotel room and complain about the, 'I don't like this wallpaper, I hate this room'. I'd fly by private jet, I'd moan about the colour of the private jet. That's how out of touch I was. And I got to thinking then, I thought Christ: It was one of the most moving experiences of my life being there for that week. And seeing that family, not just Ryan's death, not just Ryan, but the whole family. Their compassion, they brought me back to reality. And it wasn't long afterwards. In fact, after that, that I started to get my life together.
David Frost: And so, you were, you were ready for the message in July 1990. And you were ready for the messenger as well, which was important, where it was coming from? What have you done then? That was, well, nearly 18 months ago, how have you changed your life the last 18 months?
Elton John: I've changed it completely, actually. I don't drink anymore or take drugs anymore. And I don't, I'm not bulimic anymore. When you give up things like that, that's made a hell of a difference. Because chemically, things like that made me very depressed. The last 16 months of my life have been the most joyous time of my life. I actually look forward to getting up, I can cope with success, I don't feel guilty about what I've got -- I'm beginning gradually to find out maybe who I am. I entered recovery, wanting to recover, because I was so unhappy and so miserable, that anything was preferable to the state that I was in. So I decided to go into hospital and for six weeks. And it was the best thing I ever did for myself. And my life got better, and got better and better and better. My family came back from Spain. My mother and I talk all the time every day on the phone, I've learned to help other people. I've learned to be there for other people, I've learned to try and be a decent, decent human being again. I think I always was, but I lost it somewhere along the line. There are so many millions of people who have the same problems as me and they don't communicate. Because they don't think people want to be there for them. And if any of you are out there listening just... it's okay to ask for help. I didn't think it was because I thought it was a sign of weakness. In fact, it's a very spiritual thing to do, to ask another human being to help you. And I'm very glad I did. And now as a result, my life has changed so much.
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Wilfred Frost: One of the most significant changes Elton made, in large part inspired by Ryan White, was founding the Elton John Aids foundation in 1992. He set the charity up at a time when AIDS had become the leading cause of death among young men in America.
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David Frost: Now in the 90s, one of the big events in the 90s in your life. It was 92, was when you first of all, you announced that all your single sales, were going to go to AIDS charities, and then you founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation. I mean, that was a major step, wasn't it? And that's been a major, it's been a passion of yours ever since.
Elton John: It's something that's an ongoing commitment and will be for the rest of my life. In Africa with the situation is so dreadful because of this, the sanitary problems. There's no medicine, there's no medical, there's this stigma of AIDS is unbelievable. There are 35 million people living in this new world today with HIV and AIDS. And the virus is so clever, it will mutate. Economically it's a disaster. So yes, I started the AIDS Foundation and we started off as a direct care to helping people in hospices: Get, get food, get medicine, get looked after, housing.
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Wilfred Frost: The Elton John AIDS Foundation has raised more than $600 million for HIV prevention programs, helping countless lives across dozens of countries.
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Elton John: We're going to beat this, we're going to do this, we're really going to give money. I think the message is beginning to hit home. This is a crippling, crippling disease. Again, you're not going to have an instant solution because the infrastructure is so difficult, but there is progress.
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The 90s was such a key decade for Elton. Not only did he overcome his addiction and find purpose in humanitarian work, he also rediscovered his creativity: He began writing songs for films and the Broadway stage. He even won an Oscar for “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” in Disney’s Lion King.
But of all of his accomplishments that decade, his greatest happiness came not from his songwriting successes--but from his personal relationships.
Decades earlier, Elton had told dad that ‘I have so many close friends, but nobody close to me’. But after his recovery, that would all change -- because Elton would meet his future husband, David Furnish.
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David Frost: In terms of relationships, you also said that, because that’s been one of the great things about this decade:”That it took me more than 40 years to find someone like David and now I have.” I mean, that’s been one of the great things, the relationship with David.
Elton John: We get on very well, we’re like it’s, I think any relationship, you’ve been with Carina for so long and have this wonderful relationship, you have to be best friends
David Frost: Absolutely.
Elton John: You have to, you know, there are ups and downs in every relationship. And David and I have our rows, but they soon get sorted out because we have very, a lot of, a lot of things in common. We like the same kind of things. And he’s very supportive of me. I’m very supportive of him. And it’s worked. It works very, very well.
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Wilfred Frost: Elton and David would get married in 2005. As for starting a family - Dad had asked Elton about possibly wanting to have children back in the early 90s
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David Frost: And you'd have been a, you'd have been a terrific father actually wouldn't you?
Elton John: I don't know.
David Frost: Would you like to have been?
Elton John: I have you know, it's, to be honest, there are times when I really like to, I'm godfather to quite a few children. I mean, I don't know, how do you know if you're going to be a good father? Children are, children are... I suppose children are frightening, people to meet because they cut through all the bullshit of life. You know, when you're young, you're very truthful. But you know, you have children, you know that they can say things to you, and they hit you right through, straight through, that's right on the money.
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Wilfred Frost: While hesitant in the 90s - once happily settled with David -- Elton ultimately decided to have children: Zachary in 2010 and Elijah in 2013. Earlier this year he said - “having a minute with them is worth more than any painting, any photograph, any house, or any hit record.”
Of course it has not been all positive since the early 90s for Elton. There were major emotional low-points too: In 1997 Elton's close friend, Diana, Princess of Wales, died suddenly in a car crash in Paris, while being chased by paparazzi. He famously sang a revised version of “Candle in the Wind” at Diana’s funeral.
The scale of the event was enormous with over 30m watching in the UK, and an estimated audience of 2.5bn worldwide.
Dad and Mum, who had been close to Diana, were also there.
The day after the funeral, Dad and Elton met to reflect on the moment. It was the kind of interview that only dad could get: A vulnerable moment for both men, it was a glimpse into the mutual trust they shared.
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David Frost: But seeing you there just before you sang the song, I think we all felt for you at that moment because it must have been the most daunting or nerve wracking moment of your life.
Elton John: Actually. Yeah, it probably was, but not until I started actually singing and playing. And then I suddenly realised that this, this was it. I think, at the beginning of the last verse, my voice cracked and I was really chock full of emotion then and I just had to close my eyes and grit my teeth and get through it. It was just such a huge relief to have actually sang it and not got the words wrong or...
David Frost: Well, of course, you mentioned that to me in advance that the, you've been singing those other words, you knew the new words, but you've been singing the other words for 23 years and the nightmare was that habit might take over
Elton John: Exactly. Well. I mean, the song was really rewritten on Tuesday night. I rang Bernie Taupin, he lives in California, and explained the circumstances, that it wouldn't be appropriate to sing Candle in the Wind in the old version because it was about somebody else and would he do a rewrite, and he did it within the hour actually. I actually had a teleprompter there just to help me, I have to say, I cheated. But I just thought I'm not gonna I'm not gonna mess this one up, on such a big occasion.
David Frost: Would you like to see a change in the laws regarding the press?
Elton John: We've had all this wailing and caterwauling from people in the show business. I mean, it's a nuisance, I have to say, it really is a nuisance, and it is frightening sometimes when papparazi crowd around you. But if I would be a liar to sit here and say that what I go through is as daunting as what she went through. But I think it's part and parcel of what we are and what we, and then the business we're in, and I don't really see how it's going to change.
David Frost: What's the nearest you've got to a perfect song?
Elton John: Well in the way I write it's a marriage of music and lyric you see, so I would say I think Candle in the Wind is probably quite close to that because…
David Frost: Why do you particularly pick on Candle in the Wind? Because of the marriage of words and music?
Elton John: Yeah, it's a poignant lyric about a tragic thing.
David Frost: How did you go about that one?
Elton John 1:04:33 Well, again, it's it comes back to the hymnal quality of some of the things I write. Sacrifice, for example, is [Music] and Candle in the Wind. [Music] They're all those sort of hymns. When in doubt write a hymn because then people, if you want a poignant song that will touch people. I mean, there's nothing more poignant sometimes than a hymn, or a good hymn, or a good melodic hymn. And that's what Candle in the Wind is really, it's a hymn. There are certain songs you know, when you finish them. They're a little bit more special than others. They don't come around that often. And you just can't pull them out of thin air. You're always in search of that holy grail, the most perfect song. And that's what keeps you going.
You want to reduce people to tears, you want to make them happy. You want them to... a song to be a special part of their life that they go oh my god, I was there when I first heard that song. Like, it happens to me. You know when I hear a song for the first time I think, 'God, that's so great.' And I can remember where I am, and where I was when I first heard it. And that's what music does to people. It's uplifting.
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Wilfred Frost: Elton is still producing fresh music today - in fact when Cold Heart hit number one in the UK last October he became the first artist to have a UK number 1 in 6 different decades. AND he is still performing it for us - he remains one of the greatest live performers in the world at the age of 74. He’s currently performing his farewell tour, with his last live show scheduled for May of 2023.
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David Frost: You love being on stage. I mean you've said that's where you really come alive before the... Years ago, people used to say when you were 23, what will you be doing at 40 or 44 or whatever. Now what will you be doing at 60? Would you like to be doing all this then too?
Elton John : I'd like to be as happy as I am now. I'd like to still be performing. I'd still like to be writing songs. I'd still like to be involved in life. I was a kid born in council house, from a very working class family. I've met some incredible people. I met MAy West, I met the President of the United States and met the whole royal family, I met all my idols, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Little Richard. I've met politicians. I've had tea with Lech Walesa. Incredible stuff, who would have ever thought it? I've danced with the Queen at Windsor Castle. But all those wonderful things don't mean anything if you aren't happy.
Elton John: I tell you people, I just generally like to say this is the miracle. My life has been fucking brilliant. It's been wonderful. And I'm very excited about the next 20 years of my life.
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Wilfred Frost: Dad's final interview with Elton was 17 years ago, in 2005, and no doubt Sir Elton would say today that his life was even more brilliant than it was then given how much more he has achieved professionally since, but more importantly the balance and happiness he has in his personal life with his husband David, and sons Zachary and Elijah.
As an enormous Elton fan myself I have so enjoyed making this episode of The Frost Tapes. It seems odd to say this about someone who has sold 300m records but it has been learning about how he so bravely and effectively overcame his personal demons that has fascinated me most of all. I am not sure if he has ever talked so openly about that to anyone other than his friend, my Dad, David Frost.
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David Frost: The only addiction left in your life is shopping.
Elton John: Yes, David, I'm going to take you out right now and buy you a fabulous ballgown. [laughter]
David Frost: Thank you for a wonderful session.
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Wilfred Frost: In the next episode of The Frost Tapes we hear from another songwriting genius… Andrew Lloyd Webber.
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Andrew Lloyd-Webber: I was in New York. And I was in one of those secondhand bookshops. I saw the Phantom of the Opera, 50 cents or something. You know, the Gaston LeRoux book. And so I thought, well, I'm not doing anything much this afternoon, it was a Sunday, I'll buy it and I bought it and read it. And by the end of the evening, I realised that I'd found the next subject.
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Wilfred Frost: The Frost Tapes is a production of Paradine Productions and Chalk and Blade. Executive producers are Wilfred Frost, George Frost, Laura Sheeter, Ruth Barnes and Nigel Sinclair. Producers are Lily Ames, Rosie Stopher and Matt Nielson. Written by Lucas Reilly and Wilfred Frost. Sound design and mixing by Alex Portfelix and Matt Nielson. Music composed by Pascal Wyse. Candle In The Wind ‘97 performed by Elton John, courtesy of EMI Records under license from Universal Music Operations Limited. With special thanks to David Peck at Reeling in the Years Productions, to White Horse Pictures, to A&E Television Networks, and to Marty Mitchell.