Summary: The film Rocketman (2019) details the harrowing and influential life of international superstar, Sir. Elton John.
The movie starts with John bursting through the doors of a rehabilitation center, still in his concert costume. He sits among a circle of recovering addicts, in which he is asked about his childhood. A child version of John appears in the room, in which John chases him out of the room into his childhood neighborhood. We see John’s (Birth name being Reginald Dwight) life; his mother wasn’t the nicest, his father returned from the army but didn’t love him, and his grandmother was the only person who truly cared.
Years pass, John’s father abandons the family after he sees his mother cheating, and John starts attending the Royal Academy of Music for piano. John grows into a young adult, where he joins a touring band, playing music for an African American music group, where he then figures out he’s gay. After that, he goes to a music company, and meets Bernie Taupin where they slowly begin to collaborate. This takes them far enough to get to America where John becomes a huge success. John meets John Reid, a music manager and an evil man. John becomes addicted to drugs, is stuck in this abusive relationship with his manager, and is generally overworked.
After a 3 day cocaine binge, he attempts suicide via drowning at a party at his house. Nothing comes of this, life goes on, John comes out to his mother. He marries a woman, it clearly doesn’t work out, they get divorced. John has an argument with mother and stepfather, then followed by him having an argument with Taupin over Taupin saying he’s going back home for a bit and requesting that John joins him. Following this, John goes home, does a bunch of cocaine, overdoses, and has a heart attack.
He is still then forced to perform at a concert. Before going on stage, John is about to snort some more cocaine, but he notices his nose bleeding. This prompts him to abandon the concert, where he catches a taxi, and goes to a rehabilitation hospital. Everything comes back full circle as the opening scene of the movie plays. In there, John makes peace with all of his demons. Bernie comes to visit him, and the movie ends off with a remake of the original I’m Still Standing music video as a musical number. And that is Rocketman.
Analysis: Here’s a close-reading of the song Rocket Man in relation to Rocketman.
Rocket Man first appears as an instrumental during John’s childhood where, in his head, he plays the piano with a grand orchestra. It next appears during John’s suicide attempt, when he falls from his diving board, into his pool, surrounded by nearly a hundred people. The depths of the pool have clearly become distorted in Elton’s head, and as he sinks to the bottom, he sees the child version of himself (who we’ll call Reggie for now), playing on the same piano he had imagined. He’s dressed as an astronaut.
Reggie begins:
She packed my bags last night
Pre-flight
Zero hour, nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
Reggie watches Elton the entire time he sinks to the bottom. With this same piano he imagined all his dreams coming true to, he watches how achieving that dream has boded for him. There’s not much to say about the first three lines, but it can be taken that the last line is a direct jab at Elton for the cycle he has fallen into. Elton takes control of the song from this point, but Reggie watches him in disdain and disappointment.
Elton goes on:
I miss the earth so much
I miss my life
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight
In Elton’s career, he’s the Rocket Man; he’s untouchable. He’s so far gone from the civilian lifestyle he once knew, falling into an unhealthy and self-destructive cycle, that it has become alienating. To any other person, he’s amazingly talented, he’s out of this world. But to himself, he would do anything just to come back down from this nightmare that has essentially become his life.
People jump into the water to save John, but he watches them, they all begin dancing/floundering around in the water before they reach him. I believe this emphasizes that difference between him and them. It takes them so long to reach him because he’s so far away from where they are. In a way, they almost struggle to reach the bottom.
Elton is pulled from the water and put in an ambulance, incoherent as people cry out to him. In the ambulance, he continues:
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
A rocket man
A rocket man
This part is a little more simple, being a performer is his full-time job. And I mean performing in every aspect, even his daily life. This hellish cycle is simply his job. As this part goes on, the ambulance parks and paramedics pull John along on a stretcher, pumping his stomach. As they pass behind a wall, the scene changes to a venue. The paramedics remove him from the stretcher, performing a dance number, changing his clothes, and lifting him about.
They pull a costume on him, and when they set him down, the paramedics have become his management team, ‘Elton John’ lining the backs of their uniforms. They give him a shot, presumably some drug, and finish putting his costume on.
John sings:
And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time
‘Til touchdown brings me ‘round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no, no, no, I’m a rocket man
Rocket man, burning up his fuse out here alone
These lyrics continue on with this theme of loneliness that John feels due to his untouchable status, and how in the grand scheme of things, no one cares, as long as he does his job. He’s immediately placed back on-stage after a suicide attempt and an overdose carelessly, because that is his job. And it’s not like his audience is aware of this, I’m not the man they think I am at home, I’m a rocket man. All they know John for is his public image, and to have no one know his struggle is isolating.
John looks quite depressed by all of this, but as soon as they push him forward to go on-stage, a bright smile covers his face and he’s back to performing. The song repeats the earlier lyrics, but at the end, continues to repeat, And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time.
I believe that this means it’ll be a long time before any of this ends, before John can escape this life. He can’t die, and even when he tries to, he’s sent right back to the stage without a care in the world. This is his reality, and I think it’s gonna be a long, long time before it changes.
Inspiration: This play can be an inspiration to mine due to its raw nature, but amazing musical soundtrack. They were able to make his songs into a musical fitting format. I would prefer for my musical to incorporate more rock-ish tones. Also the lighting in this musical is fantastic, I would love to have the lighting design in my musical. This musical also addresses some heavy topics which is what I would hope to be able to do with mine.
Two discussion questions: How do you believe John is able to make vague/unrelated songs fit so well into this biographical musical?
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