“An Audience with Elton John” was aired on ITV in 1997, and the audience was packed with celebrities, including Boris Becker, Claudia Schiffer, David Copperfield, Ozzy Osbourne, and others. The documented scene originated from two rumours: that Elton John can write songs very quickly, and that he can write music to absolutely any text. Both rumours are said to have had a precedent in the 1970s, when he wrote a song to the text from a phonebook. He repeated the trick a few times afterwards, composing music on the spot to various texts.
This time Richard E. Grant handed him a leaflet to one of the kitchen appliances. The mastery of the composer is so stupendous that it does feel unbelievable, which registered in certain comments on YouTube. The problem, of course, is not in a simple fact of us living in the age of staged-up TV shows. The problem is in the sheer absense of anything similar. Now and again we hear about musical artists locking themselves up in a studio to conceive of a new album, which usually takes anything from six months to several years. Obviously, the time needed to conceive of an idea and to find the way to present it varies greatly from artist to artist, and there is no minimum timescale to be used as a limit.
And yet, in this video Elton John demonstrates something more than just his talents of a song-writer and performer. In a matter of seconds he chooses the style of music which makes the entire song a perfect parody on consumerist advertising. As I’m listening to it, I can vividly picture a TV advert, with mannerist ladies in purple skirt suits, with perms and fucsia lipstick, singing in the kitchen: “get to know all there is to know about your new oven before you begin preparing your own mouthwatering meals”.
Over to you now! And if you’ve seen this programme and have other fond memories to share, leave us a comment.