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In his new guide, “Mighty Actual: A Historical past of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000” (printed by Viking), Barry Walters, a author for such publications as Rolling Stone and Spin, explores how LGBTQ songwriters, musicians, execs and followers reshaped popular culture within the late twentieth century, as queer messages in music grew to become much less coded.
Learn an excerpt under in regards to the affect of singer-songwriter Elton John, and do not miss Barry Walters on “CBS Sunday Morning” July 19!
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Chapter 9
Elton John
“It is a bit bit humorous, this sense inside/I am not a kind of who can simply conceal” goes the opening of Elton John’s introductory 1970 hit “Your Music,” however conceal Sir Elton initially did. Overlook for a second all the pieces you realize about his trademark garishness and ponder his first few album jackets. There’s a lot of beige and denim—little gaiety. For a lot of his early ’70s catalog, the songs inside had been additionally earth‑toned, but hardly ever autobiographical. Even when paying tribute to Americana in 1970’s conceptual nation album Tumbleweed Connection, his sidekick lyricist and fellow Englishman Bernie Taupin imparts mythic, even gothic otherworldliness to the Previous West and bygone South. Conjuring detailed imaginary worlds by way of compositionally wealthy and sumptuously symphonic abilities hardly ever exceeded in pop, the piano man makes their reveries appear conversely actual as a result of he serves them with surreal ranges of feeling. The bounty of Taupin’s wordy poesy and the fulsomeness of Gus Dudgeon’s manufacturing pull every album additional into an extroversion uncommon for singer‑songwriters. As phrase unfold of Elton’s showmanship, his presentation grew far bigger than the non-public life he prevented discussing.
Except for “Razor Face” on 1971’s Madman Throughout the Water, which presents like to a grizzled and fairly probably homosexual elder gent who’s “on the lookout for a spot to put down,” somebody who “wants a younger man to stroll him round,” there is not a lot tangible queerness to Elton’s earliest data. Tentative steps to a pop‑artwork presentation are taken on 1972’s Honky Château, and its singles proved relatable to LGBTQ individuals. “Rocket Man” is sung by an astronaut faraway from bizarre existence. When society stored most of us closeted, its axial line “I am not the person that they assume I’m at house” voiced our secrets and techniques by proxy. “Honky Cat” tells the story of an outland lad who, like many people, finds salvation within the large metropolis’s brilliant lights. Do not Shoot Me I am Solely the Piano Participant furthered this evolution in 1973. Sung from one brother to a different, “Daniel” was the closest we obtained to a ubiquitous ’70s identical‑intercourse love tune. It is that very same 12 months’s subsequent Goodbye Yellow Brick Highway that flicked the swap from sepia to Technicolor for good. Relatively than merely paraphrasing outdated‑time boogie‑woogie, as he did on Do not Shoot‘s kitschy “Crocodile Rock,” Elton turns into a real rocker right here, but concurrently present tune‑y—a combo that might affect queer rock musicals like Hedwig and the Indignant Inch, in addition to theatrically inclined LGBTQ rockers like Scissor Sisters. For the primary time, Elton persistently captures the exuberance of his piano-pounding, Little Richard–impressed concert events, which chafed in opposition to his early earnestness. Recorded with the working title “Silent Motion pictures and Speaking Photos,” Goodbye serves as his musical popping out—a prelude to his private one in Rolling Stone, first as bisexual in 1976, then as homosexual in 1988.
You possibly can see that shift in Goodbye‘s art work. Clad in a pink‑satin bomber jacket, Elton abandons the monochromatic drabness of bizarre existence and follows the bluebird of happiness into the dawning of a far‑brighter, Hollywood‑impressed reverie over the rainbow. He is not forgoing The Wizard of Oz‘s yellow brick street, because the title suggests, however stepping proper onto it in glittery, crimson platform sneakers—the ’70s male equal of Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers. Its symbolism could not be clearer: The musician flees the drab actuality he was born into as Reg Dwight, his start title, and trades it for the rising LGBTQ dream of a multicolor utopia he might solely attain as Elton John. He is even carrying rose‑coloured glasses.
You possibly can hear this transition within the music, too, proper within the opening medley. A dirgelike overture, “Funeral for a Pal” may be heard as a eulogy for Elton’s former closeted self, summing up the seriousness of his earlier albums earlier than slamming into “Love Lies Bleeding.” This stately swell of rock ‘n’ roll shifts Elton away from a softy singer‑songwriter right into a style‑crossing real rocker.
The third of six consecutive chart‑topping albums, Goodbye marks when Elton attained the cultural centrality of the Rolling Stones, whose muck he mimics on “Soiled Little Woman.” Extra surprising is the specter of Slade—glam’s butchest finest‑promoting louts—on the double LP’s shout‑alongside lead single, “Saturday Evening’s Alright for Combating,” and even Alice Cooper on “All of the Women Love Alice,” which eulogizes a effectively‑bred however licentious sixteen‑12 months‑outdated lesbian.
The latter tune’s illustration in Goodbye‘s triple‑gatefold sleeve additional attracts from The Killing of Sister George, a 1968 movie that additionally contains a queer Alice. Like Elton’s 1974 hit “The Bitch Is Again,” which set a precedent for the b‑phrase’s reputation in pop however bypasses its typical misogyny (as a result of the singer calls himself a bitch and owns it), Sister George is not remotely PC. Its lesbians reside merciless, mutually damaging lives, and the tune goes even additional to counsel—as did many different LGBTQ motion pictures of the period—that in case you act on queer passions, you may wind up lifeless. Nonetheless, a catchy, laborious‑rocking, lesbian-themed tune on a primary album was a breakthrough that spoke to LGBTQ listeners hungry for any likeness of our lives. Though Taupin’s lyric exhibits little understanding of homosexual expertise, Elton’s music feels firsthand. Punctuated by pregnant pauses and peaking in a vortex of stabbing guitars, pounding piano, zip‑zapping synths, and ricocheting sound results, it is Elton’s sexiest tune. “If I provide you with my quantity, will you promise to name me?/Wait until my husband’s away,” he pleads from the angle of Alice’s feminine admirers. Right here was a probable homosexual celebrity singing about identical‑intercourse relations with first‑individual pronouns—and it is sizzling. When lesbians had no mainstream voice, this spoke volumes. I performed this observe obsessively at age twelve whereas studying the lyrics and finding out the illustration to determine what they may imply—about Elton, and me.
Goodbye set the musician’s compositional identification. Even in its most contrasting moments, Elton sounds extra like himself right here than on every other album. His selection of chords and the notes he accentuates are as intrinsic to his sonic stamp because the jumps in his voice from baritone to falsetto, particularly on the ascending title observe. He fought in opposition to the only launch of his most Elton‑y tune ever, “Bennie and the Jets,” as a result of he did not consider it might achieve success. As a substitute, it grew to become, for many years, his greatest US hit. His exaltation of an electrical‑booted, mohair‑suited singer who empowers followers to struggle their dad and mom’ outdated morality could not be extra glam. Given the masculine moniker and feminine pronouns, Bennie—spelled “Benny” on the UK single—may even be a man Elton calls “she” within the arch homosexual method earlier than vamping girlishly. Its gradual and funky groove made “Bennie” an R&B radio hit, set a precedent for 1975’s Philly soul tribute “Philadelphia Freedom,” and helped land Elton on Soul Prepare.
Aretha gave her approval even earlier: Her 1970 gospel rendition of Elton’s “Border Music” charted greater than his personal. However Elton’s connection to outsiders goes deeper than his R&B expertise. Goodbye pays tribute to Hollywood by way of Marilyn Monroe in Goodbye‘s authentic “Candle within the Wind.” He rerecorded the tune in 1997 as a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, and it grew to become the second‑finest‑promoting single of all time. Giving Taupin’s archetypes troubled souls, Elton situates each heroines in a lonely place past the established order that is akin to ours. In his hardly ever simple music, you may hear the allied rhythms of their difficult lives.
Figuring out with the glamorous and gutsy extremes of Goodbye, Elton broke from the center‑of‑the‑street crooner he was initially perceived to be. Though his queerness wasn’t fairly specific but, it was now completely implicit. Even with Taupin’s talking for him lyrically, there’s hardly a second when this celebrity appears straight in any sense of the phrase. Goodbye is the place he actually transcends actuality—the last word, if unstated, objective of all minorities, and girls as effectively. The goals Elton John dared to dream actually did come true.
From “Mighty Actual” by Barry Walters, printed by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random Home, LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Barry Walters.
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