Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me

Award-winning Taupin, the lyricist behind Elton John’s stardom, impressionistically recounts people, places, and events in his action-packed life. Growing up in rural Northern England, his early interest was in American country music. A chance meeting with John led to a lifelong collaboration; John wrote the melodies after Taupin penned the words. Taupin vividly details his wide-eyed recollections of swinging ’60s London, the 1970s music scene in Los Angeles and New York City, wild adventures in Paris and Mexico, and his skirmishes with giant frogs, tarantulas, and cockroaches in Montserrat. He describes meetings with his literary idol Graham Greene, rock poet Leonard Cohen, and the irrepressible Cher and having dinner with quirky artist Salvador DalÍ. The book notes the author’s idiosyncratic and mostly hapless girlfriends and wives and his alcohol- and cocaine-fueled times with Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, and Keith Moon. Taupin also includes stories about his own bands and his obsessions with book collecting, good food, and cowboy culture.