{"id":152569,"date":"2025-11-25T19:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T19:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/152569\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T19:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T19:25:11","slug":"elton-john-on-retirement-new-music-and-aids-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/152569\/","title":{"rendered":"Elton John on Retirement, New Music and AIDS Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe artwork Elton John<\/a> has displayed on the walls of his home in the Hollywood Hills wasn\u2019t necessarily intended to reinforce a running theme. Yet you can\u2019t help noticing how some of the paintings suggest a preoccupation that has consumed him through nearly four decades. On the wall nearest the picture window overlooking the Los Angeles Basin is one of Andy Warhol\u2019s blazingly chromatic 1960s portraits of Elizabeth Taylor. And in the small dinette off the foyer where we will have an audience with John, there is a Keith Haring original.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latter is a painting by a famous figure in the art world who died of AIDS. The other, a loving rendering of an actress who was among the first beloved celebrities bold enough to dedicate herself to the fight against AIDS when the public and government were still largely washing their hands of a \u201cgay plague.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tSir Elton was not so very far behind Dame Elizabeth when the HIV crisis was at its height, publicly befriending the terminally afflicted teenage victim Ryan White and then, in 1992, establishing the Elton John AIDS Foundation \u2014 the entertainment world\u2019s foremost charity devoted to the cause, and the fifth largest HIV philanthropic funder in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn splits his time between his homes in London and Los Angeles, where he lives with his husband, David Furnish, and their two children, Zachary, 14, and Elijah, 12. In recent years, Furnish has joined John in interviews, partly because they work together as collaborators in addition to being spouses\u2026 and because, as chairman of the EJAF, he is the keeper of those facts and figures\u2026 and, incidentally, also is the keeper of the app that controls John\u2019s hearing devices. (\u201cI\u2019m too loud now, I\u2019m feeding back,\u201d John tells Furnish. \u201cI\u2019m like Pete Townshend!\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I arrive at their Los Angeles home, Furnish warmly greets me, and we have a preamble discussion about his and John\u2019s decades of fundraising, before John appears at the table in the kind of sudden, magical, slightly stealthy way that has tended to occur since he was beset by vision problems in the past couple years. As it happens, John is in a jovial mood \u2014 except for when we pick up the discussion of factors that have stifled a once-stated mission to eradicate new HIV cases worldwide by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it comes to those roadblocks, the bitch is back.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI just am enraged by it,\u201d John says, talking about goalposts shifting in the U.S. and globally. \u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating when you\u2019ve got the tools in your hand to end it, and then you find that countries in Africa, Russia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe won\u2019t help.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat forces the U.S. to do even more, except the trend is toward budget cutbacks at a time when there is no momentum to ramp up funding associated with the LGBTQ+ community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou know, there\u2019s a big war that\u2019s being settled, hopefully,\u201d John says, referring to Gaza. \u201cBut there\u2019s another war. with people who are suffering from HIV and AIDS that should be able to get their medicine but can\u2019t, because governments won\u2019t let them. It\u2019s inhumane. So my big beef at the moment is, yes, thank God, maybe there\u2019s peace, after more things are sorted out. But there are crimes against millions of other people that are happening because of governments and stigma and hate. It\u2019s so frustrating when you have the medicine, you have prep, you have the antiretrovirals. We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cElton\u2019s a little blunter than me,\u201d whispers Furnish, chuckling approvingly at how the 20 minutes of numbers crunching and policy wonkdom he just provided have been supplanted by his husband\u2019s display of passion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tElton John and Chappell Roan perform onstage at Elton John AIDS Foundation\u2019s 33rd Annual Academy Awards Viewing Party<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Kovac\/Getty Images for E<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo years ago, John says, they took a trip with a U.S. delegation to South Africa to look at efforts there, and \u201cLindsey Graham said it was the best bang for your buck you could possibly get.\u201d He likes to point out Republican support like that, past or present, in the instances in which he\u2019s able. \u201cThe bipartisan thing makes common sense. To see us come so far with the medical and scientific advances, and to think this is the only disease that can be completely cured in one\u2019s lifetime. President Trump has maybe solved the peace problem. If he wants to go down as one of the greatest presidents in history \u2026 if he ended AIDS, that would really be a feather in his cap.\u201d This is John the businessman talking. Although he politely declined to perform at Trump\u2019s 2016 inauguration, John has a long history of knowing the president, and he understands that speaking in superlatives might possibly move the needle for his cause.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut couldn\u2019t he just call the president on the phone, the way he does Keir Starmer or Emmanuel Macron? Here, Furnish steps in to answer, saying they have had very positive conversations with representatives in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSitting at this table, John recalls how, in 1991, they gathered around another kitchen table, at their former home in Atlanta, and began mapping out the Elton John AIDS Foundation, in part as a response to what he saw as more wasteful charities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPeople trust us because they see the results,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite extraordinary what\u2019s happened from that little kitchen table. We\u2019ve now raised over $650 million, but with matching grants, we\u2019re over a billion dollars. But there\u2019s so much more to be doing there. If there\u2019s no dialogue, it may take much longer than we hope it will. You can\u2019t walk away after coming so far. And sometimes you feel like beating your head against a brick wall, but that doesn\u2019t do any good to the people that are suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn can relate to suffering right about now. In the summer of 2024, vacationing in France, he contracted an eye infection, with seemingly permanent effects on both eyes, one more drastic than the other. (He\u2019s blind in his right eye.) He does not whitewash the emotional as well as physical effects. But, he says, \u201cI\u2019m really, really lucky. And this helps me, the AIDS Foundation, because when you think, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m really feeling sorry for myself,\u2019 and you think of these people [affected by the crisis] and how much work we\u2019ve gotta do, you soon come out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter all these decades in music, John is still standing, even if he can\u2019t see much. Sight has not been part of the deal in the arc of Elton John\u2019s ongoing survival story.<\/p>\n

\n\tAny time he makes an appearance these days, he is posed already seated, or seems to have just arrived by magic, as he did today; there is no desire to have his public \u2014 or a reporter \u2014 see him being led around. Yet, at the same time, it\u2019s as if he has no vanity about it after all, when he candidly discusses where he is with the severity of his vision problems. He is even the first to bring it up.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPrince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John, and Ndaba Mandela alongside coalition partners and youth activists at the Launch of the Menstar Coalition To Promote HIV Testing & Treatment of Men<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Kovac\/Getty Images for E<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been devastating,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause I lost my right eye and my left eye\u2019s not so good, the last 15 months have been challenging for me because I haven\u2019t been able to see anything, watch anything, read anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve had the most incredible life, and there is hope,\u201d he believes. \u201cI\u2019ve just gotta be patient that someday science will help me with this one. Once they help me with this one, I\u2019ll be fine. It\u2019s exactly like the AIDS situation. You mustn\u2019t give up hope, you must be stoic, you must be strong and you must always try and batter the door down to try and improve things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFurnish elaborates on where things stand. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing some treatments and there\u2019s been some improvements in his left eye, which is really good, and we\u2019re continuing to explore and getting a lot of outreach from a lot of doctors who want to help and support. Because there\u2019s damage to the retina in his right eye, retinas don\u2019t heal naturally, so it\u2019s an area of emerging science. But things are changing really quickly. What AI is doing for medicine and science alone is astonishing. And there\u2019s all kinds of interesting new theories and breakthroughs, and they can process the data and do the trials a lot more quickly than they could before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is an \u201con the other hand\u201d for John, amid these trials. \u201cOn the other hand, I\u2019ve still been able to play. I\u2019m still singing. We did the Singapore Grand Prix the other day with the band, which was wonderful. I mean, you just have to grin and bear it. It does get me down sometimes. But on the whole, I\u2019ve got a wonderful family; I have two great kids; I have him\u201d \u2014 he indicates the oft-beaming Furnish by his side. \u201cPaul McCartney FaceTimes me to see how I\u2019m doing. It\u2019s really beautiful. The love I\u2019ve received from him and from Pete Townshend and Mick Jagger and people like that have been amazing. Or you get an email from Keith Richards saying, \u2018Hello, darling, how you doing? You know we love you,\u2019 and that\u2019s it, but it just makes my day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn returns the favor, especially when it comes to playing electronic pen pal to the younger singers he mostly prefers listening to over old favorites. \u201cIf you support and you love artists, you keep in touch,\u201d he says. But there\u2019s an extra rationale. \u201cThe thing with my iPad is, I can actually see someone close-up. So I often call Chappell, and of course I always call Brandi because she\u2019s one of my best friends. But it\u2019s a way of me staying in communication with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of John\u2019s maladies are evident as he meets you, seemingly eye to eye, in person. Once in place, he could pass for perfectly sighted.<\/p>\n

\n\tFurnish says that they have come up with a giant-type computer screen that allows John to do at least a little bit of reading now, with his less compromised eye. John was motivated, his husband notes with perhaps a bit of amusement, by his intense desire to be able to see and keep track of the midweek charts. Once a music geek, always a music geek.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s tough to go and see a show,\u201d John admits, \u201cbecause I saw Chappell out in the desert [at Coachella] and I saw Brandi at the Albert Hall, and they were both incredible shows. But I can\u2019t really see what\u2019s going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFurnish has an asterisk for that. \u201cYeah, but you were giving Brandi lighting notes,\u201d he points out as they both erupt in laughter. \u201cYou were in the back of the box at the other end of the Albert Hall, and you were giving her lighting notes! Which I just love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was,\u201d agrees John sheepishly. \u201cAt least I can do that.\u201d This could be a sign of the slight improvement in the left eye, Furnish suggests. Or, you know, it may just be Elton John being a boss.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tElton John performs at his farewell tour at Dodger Stadium<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLos Angeles Times via Getty Imag<\/p>\n

\n\tThe annual Oscar-viewing parties held by the Elton John AIDS Foundation are another joy in John\u2019s life. Much of what the EJAF does these days is behind the scenes, except for this. \u201cWe don\u2019t do many fundraisers now,\u201d John says. \u201cWe used to do a white-tie-and-tiara at our house in Windsor every summer, which was incredible. But the Oscar party is now the thing\u201d as the public and media face of the foundation. And it\u2019s grown and grown and grown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re so lucky to have our party as the only charity event on Oscar night,\u201d says Furnish. \u201cActually, it was Patrick Lippert [a political activist who died in 1993] who put his flag in the soil years ago and then gave the night to EJAF. But we have the largest entertainment charity event of the year, which the whole world is plugged into, and that\u2019s a really great thing. We get tremendous media coverage. And just keeping HIV\/AIDS in the dialogue is really important, because the medicines are so successful that people aren\u2019t seeing people still sick and dying from AIDS the way they used to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd people really have fun at our Oscar party,\u201d John adds, \u201cand I think they get big bang for their buck, as Lindsey Graham would say.\u201d For one thing, he notes, it\u2019s loose enough that \u201cyou can boo the winners. Which I do on a regular basis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis past winter, John and Furnish were latecomers to the party, coming by after losing the best song nod they shared with Brandi Carlile; no catcalling occurred. Quite unlike any other Oscar party, stage rushing is a factor toward the end of any EJAF night, especially in a year like this one, when Roan did a headlining set in front of a small but frenzied audience of just under 1,000 partygoers, after not having played in L.A. since rising to stardom. And as Carlile says, \u201cIt was great seeing Elton sing \u2018Pink Pony Club\u2019 with her. It was perfect when she put the pink cowboy hat on him. Even though I didn\u2019t win an Oscar that night, I saw Elton in a cowboy hat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, when Roan placed the pink totem upon his head, John could not have looked any more like a giddy schoolboy if he were a kid in the front row of \u201cThe Eras Tour\u201d being gifted Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201c22\u201d hat. At this late stage in his life, John takes on the role of both mentor to young artists and, in his glee, pure fanboy. He thinks he was among the first to play \u201cPink Pony Club\u201d on his \u201cRocket Hour\u201d Apple radio show, and having seen Roan subsequently, he appreciates how the band is \u201cjust three girls, no bells and whistles, no dancers, just a really fucking great rock band. And her stagecraft and her way of performing a set, spacing it and everything like that \u2026 she\u2019s an old soul. Olivia Dean, Lola Young, same thing \u2014 it\u2019s great to see these girls. They\u2019re ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile and Roan represent almost flip sides of John\u2019s split musical personalities over the decades \u2014 Carlile is his early singer-songwriter Honky Chateau side, with a touch of glam-rock; Roan is the flashier Ms. Captain Fantastic, but heavy on the singer-songwriter tip herself. When the two women had a joint conversation at the Grammy Museum early this year, on some level it felt like a gathering of John\u2019s daughters. And they shared with the audience what it is like to get random FaceTime visits from John, with Roan telling how she would be clothes shopping in a thrift store and get a call from John lasting just long enough to make a catty remark about her hair color before hanging up.<\/p>\n

\n\tEd Sheeran has similar Bluetooth convos with John that have nothing to do with music. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously got a very funny sense of humor,\u201d Sheeran says. \u201cHe\u2019s always, always got some opinion, usually football based. He\u2019ll usually ring me and just swear about some player.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a more serious level, Sheeran has an assessment of where John\u2019s legacy lies. \u201cI love his passion for younger artists, and I love his musical journey. I think it\u2019s important for artists like me to see how his career persists and isn\u2019t just uphill or downhill \u2014 it traverses.\u201d\u00a0Referring to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and his related consciousness-raising, Sheeran notes: \u201cI think that, even more than his music, in some ways, will be his legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven as he struggles to see, John won\u2019t exactly be mistaken for a shut-in, even with a far less busy schedule on the heels of his much-celebrated retirement from touring, which included a series of 2022 U.S. farewell shows at Dodger Stadium, before his farewell tour finally tapered off in Europe the following year. In fact, he remains a semi-active performer, and a galvanizing one. Fans got a glimpse of that when he recently did \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and a TV special filmed at the London Palladium to promote the collaborative album he released with Carlile earlier in 2025, \u201cWho Believes in Angels?\u201d On top of that, he does one-off gigs, many of them private acoustic shows-for-hire for 200 to 300 people, and a few of them public, like a San Diego stadium show he did with his band a few months ago as a benefit for a hearing foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnyone who has seen him in recent years, before or after the supposed retirement, knows he remains in top musical form. He may need to be led to the piano before the lights come up, but once there \u2014 to quote a song he once sang \u2014 \u201che\u2019s got crazy flipper fingers, never seen him fail.\u201d The voice: still utterly there too.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor anyone unclear on the concept of why John is still at it: \u201cElton always said he was retiring from touring, not retiring from working,\u201d Furnish says.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn says: \u201cI\u2019ll have done 11 private shows by the end of the year, which I\u2019ve never done in my life \u2014 some solo, some with the band. And it\u2019s been fun, because I was terrified I wouldn\u2019t be able to see the piano keys or the microphone. And I can see, because everything\u2019s so close up. What I can\u2019t see when I\u2019m playing with the band is the band, which is a bit of a nightmare. I can\u2019t see Nigel [Olsson], the drummer, so I have to have Davey [Johnstone, John\u2019s lead guitarist] or somebody say, \u2018OK, this is where it ends,\u2019 and make sure we\u2019re in sync.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut I tell you what, I\u2019m singing better than I\u2019ve ever done before, and I\u2019m playing really well, and I\u2019m enjoying it, and that is helping me a lot. Music has been my whole life and has given me so much and takes me on journeys that I never thought I would ever go on \u2014 and it\u2019s still doing that. I just like doing the odd thing. It pays the rent very well, and it keeps me musical. I just can\u2019t wait to go into the studio now and write some new songs and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWill he be able to read Bernie Taupin\u2019s lyrics, to write music from? Yes, says Furnish. \u201cThis is where we\u2019re getting encouraging little baby steps, going in the right direction, which is really good. We [found] a teleprompter with a green typeface, which is easier for him to read. And we got the font size great, and we just put that in front of him when he\u2019s writing at the piano. It\u2019s just like having Bernie\u2019s handwritten sheet of lyrics in the \u201970s\u2026 I\u2019ve got seven new lyrics from Bernie, and David read them to me the other night and they\u2019re really, really good, so I can\u2019t wait to go in the studio with Andrew [Watt, his recent favorite producer] and just write and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe is currently up for two Grammys for \u201cWho Believes in Angels?,\u201d his collaborative album with Brandi Carlile, recorded in late 2023 and released early this year \u2014 best traditional pop vocal album, and best song written for visual media (for \u201cNever Too Late\u201d). It was predicted to get an album of the year nomination but missed out there, with veterans typically left in the lurch in today\u2019s Grammys \u2014 although John notes that even in his commercial heyday it was not happening. \u201cI\u2019ve never been a favorite of the Grammys, I have to say. It\u2019s been very rare that I\u2019ve won anything,\u201d he notes. \u201cI won something for \u2018The Lion King,\u201d he points out (that marked the first time he won anything for a solo vocal recording). Furnish is slightly flabbergasted: \u201cElton and Bernie have never won a Grammy \u2014 can you believe that? \u2014 as a pair of songwriters.\u201d So if he and Taupin pick up the award for song for visual media, that will, bizarrely, mark a first.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn remains extremely proud of this year\u2019s release with Carlile, which debuted at No. 1 in the U.K. and in the top 10 in the U.S. \u201cWhen I did the record with Brandi, I said, \u2018You\u2019re established in America, but I want this record to establish you in other places,\u2019 and that was one of the main reasons to do it.\u2019 After we did the Palladium together, she did the Albert Hall; she has a huge following now, there, and a following in Australia, and she just went back to England to do promotions (for her own solo album, \u201cReturning to Myself\u201d), and I can\u2019t believe how many people turned up. I wanted her to become an international artist, and that album has pushed her into the fore in those countries. So it did the job. \u2026. (An award) would be nice because I believe in the album and it didn\u2019t sell as well as we hoped it would, but of course it\u2019s a different ballgame now. I follow the charts every week. It\u2019s not that kind of album.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe next project won\u2019t be as retro\/early-\u201870s-redolent an album as \u201cWho Believes in Angels?\u201d \u201cThe album with Brandi, it\u2019s a timeless record, but it\u2019s not of its time. We just wanted to make a record that we loved, with great songs. That was a yesterday record, and it was fantastic.\u00a0But there is a part of me that wants to do a much more commercial record and do more Bernie Taupin songs that are more of today than yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, there is this coming weekend\u2019s release of a live Elton\/Brandi album taken from that one-off performance earlier this year, \u201cWho Believes In Angels? Live at the London Palladium,\u201d being released exclusively on vinyl in limited quantities for Record Store Day Black Friday. This is part of John unfailingly putting out an exclusive release every time there\u2019s a Record Store Day, putting his money where his mouth is as a vinyl geek. When I ask him about the live album, he mistakenly thinks I am inquiring about what he planned to pick up this Friday, and quickly reels off an RSD shopping list from memory: \u201cWell, the list is always so long. I picked out three things this time: \u2018The Very Best of Deee-Lite,\u2019 Carmen McRae\u2019s \u2018\u201cI\u2019m Never Coming Home Again,\u2019 and there was one other one\u2026 Oh, John Lee Hooker, \u2018Chill Out.\u2019\u201d (Some of those are only being released in England, so your RSD shopping list may vary.)<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also has just put out a deluxe vinyl double-LP edition of one of his classic albums, \u201cCaptain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Kid.\u201d Preparing it gave him cause to look back on his catalog in a way he typically has not, as a determined forward-thinker resistant to nostalgia. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful album,\u201d he announces of \u201cCaptain Fantastic,\u201d almost as if he\u2019s touting one of his favorite younger artists he just discovered for his \u201cRocket Hour\u201d Apple Radio show. \u201cIt\u2019s probably my favorite album, the way it\u2019s recorded, the way it was written \u2014 written on the SS France, going from Southampton to New York. I had the music room for an hour every lunchtime. I wrote the songs, didn\u2019t record, didn\u2019t have a tape recorder, I remembered them, and then went to Caribou and finished it off.\u201d He reels off some of his favorite tracks: \u201cWe All Fall in Love Sometimes,\u201d \u201cCurtains,\u201d \u201cSomeone Saved My Life Tonight\u201d\u2026 \u201cIt moves me a lot because it was about Bernie and myself, and every song is about our life before we became famous.\u201d (He has also just put out a live album of the 1975 album from top to bottom at Wembley Stadium, which he thinks sounds great, even though for 50 years he had harbored a bad memory of everyone at the gig \u201cgoing out to the stalls\u201d once they realized he was performing then-all-new material.)<\/p>\n

\n\tFurnish says, \u201cIt\u2019s really nice, as we\u2019re doing these projects, that while Elton never looks back, he never listens to old stuff, now you\u2019re pulling out these older performances and you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow.\u2019 You\u2019re really quite blown away with the musicianship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWell, Andrew Watt came over and stayed with us in the summer,\u201d says Elton, \u201cand you can get this app on the internet where you can just be listening to \u2018Rock of the Westies\u2019 and pull out isolated music stems, so he just could get the piano track to things like \u2018Street Kids.\u2019 And I never listened back to anything, but that\u2019s such a great record. That band was just amazing. I\u2019ve gotten much more fond of my old catalog than I used to be, because I hadn\u2019t listened to it, but I realize now how musical it was. I mean, we made three orchestral albums \u2014 \u2018Elton John,\u2019 \u2018Tumbleweed (Connection)\u2019 and \u2018Madman (Across the Water),\u2019 and then Davey joined the band and we went in a completely band direction and made \u2018Honky Chateau,\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t Shoot Me,\u2019 \u2018Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,\u2019 \u2018Caribou and \u2018Captain Fantastic.\u201d And then I changed bands and we made \u2018Rock of the Westies\u2019 and \u2018Blue Moves,\u2019 which was another one of my favorites. And every album was different; I never made the same album twice\u2026 It\u2019s bringing me joy, because the stuff actually was really good musically, and that\u2019s all I care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are limits to his newfound nostalgia for aspects of his own career. He\u2019s grateful he quit the road when he did, partly to go out as a regular tourer still at the top of his abilities, largely to spend more time with his and Furnish\u2019s boys. <\/p>\n

\n\tA song that Carlile wrote for the duo album about the slow emotional separation of parents and children, \u201cYou Without Me,\u201d meant a lot to Elton, as someone about to experience more of that as the kids go through their teen years. \u201cWe kind of went through that with our eldest son going to boarding school, and our other son will be joining him next September, and then we\u2019ll be alone in their house until they come home every third weekend. So, yes, it\u2019s happening to us as it was happening to Brandi, although her kids haven\u2019t gone away yet. But yes, we\u2019re so close to our children, as they are to theirs, that it\u2019s gonna have an effect on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the prospect of not having the kids at home full-time as of next fall doesn\u2019t mean that he\u2019ll get bored and renege on his vow to leave the road in the dust. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTouring is verboten,\u201d he declares. \u201cWhen I did the \u2018Spinal Tap\u2019 film and we drove into the Coliseum in New Orleans, I went, \u2018David, I\u2019m having hives. I\u2019m backstage, and I don\u2019t want to ever be in a place like this ever again!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The artwork Elton John has displayed on the walls of his home in the Hollywood Hills wasn\u2019t necessarily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,78756,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-152569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-elton-john","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}