The real-life Rocketman, Elton John, has yet again sparked concerns after he shared a tragic life update.
Many are feeling deeply concerned about the musician.
But firstly, let’s speak a bit more about the Rocketman star.
Elton John is a legend…
And that’s why a movie was made about him… but not everything in the movie was accurate.
In Fact, Rocketman was quite far from Elton’s real life!
Elton John’s discography is at the core of Rocketman and is used as a narrative device to tell the story of Elton’s life.
But not everything was as accurate as it seemed in the successful biopic.
In the movie, we see Elton, or Reggie Dwight, as he was known as a boy, forlorn and lonely, but this loneliness isn’t isolated to young Reggie and it appears to be a collective feeling amongst his family.
Expressing their feelings through a group rendition of “I Want Love,” we watch the Dwight family sharing verses of the Elton John hit.
But, funnily enough, they did not sing “I Want Love”; a song that came out in 2001, forty-five years after they claim that it was sung in the movie.
According to Variety, it was actually the Mann hit that the Dwight’s forlornly sang together.
Speaking to The Sun, Elton said: “‘I Want Love’ is a song Bernie wrote, I think, about himself: A middle-aged man with a few divorces wondering if he is ever going to fall in love again but it fitted life in Pinner Hill Road perfectly”.
In the movie, we also see Elton performing at The Troubadour for the first time.
It is undoubtedly his performance of “Crocodile Rock” that turned heads on the set and suggests that the number played a significant role in sparking American interest in the singer.
In reality, Elton did not write or release “Crocodile Rock” for another 3 and a half years.
And at the end of the movie (sorry… spoilers!), Elton performs “I’m Still Standing”. The narrative suggests that this classic Elton John song was written post-rehab and only after a visit from Elton’s John’s long term friend, Bernie Taupin, who encourages him to get back onto the writing saddle.
Sadly, as much as we’d all like to believe that this uplifting number was written whilst Elton was clean, it’s simply not true.
This song was actually written years before Elton got clean and can’t really be attributed to the narrative of his re-birth, as the movie suggests.
In defense of the musical reshuffling in Rocketman, some argue that Elton’s songs have grown truer, more profound meanings as his life and career moved forward.
There were some other notable changes made in the movie, too.
After all, there is so much more to the star than just his music.
Many Elton fans noticed some surprising absences from the film.
And even though many of his famous friends, including Princess Diana and George Michael didn’t make the cut in the movie… they most certainly did in real life.
At the end of the day, Rocketman is about Elton and his jam-packed life, not his celebrity friends.
Which explains why there is no mention of George Michael, Freddie Mercury, Giovani Vercase, Diana, or Rod Stewart.
Fair enough, right?
The movie focuses more on how Elton has grown over the years.
Including his drug and alcohol battles… which, by the way, he has now battled and has been now living over twenty-five years sober.
This is an absolutely incredible achievement.
But all isn’t well for the pop veteran right now.
He’s been suffering with health issues over the past few years.
Elton is now seventy-five-years-old and it’s easy to see that his chaotic lifestyle as a younger man has certainly caught up on him.
For example, he performed in Auckland, New Zealand, and the star sang for around 2 hours before revealing that his voice had completely gone.
The seventy-five-year-old went on to let fans know that he had been diagnosed with Walking Pneumonia, which is caused by bacteria that affects the lower and upper respiratory tract.
And now Elton has been hit with some more bad news.
Susannah Constantine wrote: “Oh darling. Why didn’t you say? X.”
While Scissor Sisters star Jake Shears said: “So sorry… big, big love to you. What a beautiful smile.”
Because this week, Elton has shared that he’s lost his beloved Aunt Win.
The star wrote: “My beautiful Auntie Win passed away this morning at ninety-five years of age.
“I loved her so much and will miss her terribly. She was kindness personified. #RIP.”
