Saw Elton John in concert, and he was absolutely glorious. He happily focused on singing the songs that the audience wanted to hear, and his voice sounded much better at 75 than most voices will ever sound at any age.
His extended rendition of Rocket Man, in particular, was transcendent. But hearing it live reawakened a mystery that has lived in my soul ever since I first heard it half a century ago.
The mystery is this: If what he is doing up there is, as he says, “just a job, five days a week,” then what is he doing on the other two days?
Does this mean that when you’re stuck up there on Mars all by yourself, you get weekends off? And if you do get weekends off, what do you do when you’re not working?
I know there are greater mysteries than this. But I have lived with this one for a long time, and so far nobody has ever explained it to me.
Maybe Bernie Taupin knows the answer.