When listening to an episode of the Naked Lunch podcast with musical guests The Milk Carton Kids (it’s really wonderful, and worth checking out their videos if you aren’t familiar with them, as I wasn’t particularly – I’ll be posting the podcast later…), they got around to discussing song writing. And the name of Elton John came up, and his uncommon way of working with Bernie Taupin for all their decades. Taupin would write a lyric, give it to John, and he’d write the music. Totally separate from one another. Different rooms. Always. Hit after hit for decades. And sometimes the music took a while to work out, and sometimes it flowed. Host Phil Rosenthal then mentioned an appearance that Elton John made on what he thought might have been Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton, where he was given a refrigerator manual, sat down and wrote music to it. They had the audio, and remarkably it was wonderful. Rosenthal thought maybe it was on YouTube, so I checked, but unfortunately it wasn’t. But – I did find another video from Inside the Actors Studio, where – at the very end – Elton John did the same thing. He asked if anyone in the audience had a book and, being actors, someone brought up a copy of the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. And sitting at the piano and opening the script to a random page, skimming the scene for about 10 seconds, he then began to write music and sing a song with the words from Peer Gynt. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. Just a stunning bit of artistry.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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