Elton John – Rocket Man (Piano solo) with sheet music
Excerpt from the book: “Me, Elton John (autobiography)” (also available in the Library)
When the farewell tour was announced, a number of journalists had written pieces suggesting that there was absolutely no way I would really retire. They supported this argument with extensive knowledge of my history and impressive psychological insights into my character: tried to
retire before, addictive personality, born entertainer, music obsessive.
They could have supported it even more strongly by repeating what I’d said at the press conference, which was that I had no intention whatsoever of actually retiring from music, or even live performances. All I said was that I wasn’t going to schlep around the world anymore: one last huge tour – 300 gigs over three years, covering North and South America Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australasia, the kids getting a tutor and coming with us – and that’s that.
It isn’t the end. I was excited by the fact that stopping touring would give me more time to do different things. I want to write more musicals and more film scores. I want to spend time working with the AIDS Foundation, especially in Africa. I want to stand up for the LGBTQ community there, to try and talk to politicians in Uganda or Kenya or Nigeria and do something to change the way people are treated. I want to
collaborate with different artists.
I want to stage a huge exhibition, covering my whole career, maybe even think about opening a permanent museum, so people can see some of my
art and photography collections. I want to spend more time making albums, and to make them in the way I used to at the start of my solo career: get Bernie to spend time writing a lot of lyrics and develop a stockpile of material.
I haven’t gone into the studio with a big hoard of songs to choose from since Madman Across the Water, forty-eight years ago – I’ve just turned up and written on the spot, like the musical version of a painter with a blank canvas.
I want to go back to writing without recording what I’m doing, the same way we made Captain Fantastic, memorizing what I come up with as I go along. I want to play live, but much smaller shows, where I can concentrate on playing different material.
If there’s a problem with writing songs like ‘I’m Still Standing’, or ‘Rocket Man’, or ‘Your Song’ it’s that they become so huge; they develop a life of their own and overwhelm everything else you do. I love those songs to death, but I’ve written other songs I think are as good as them, that exist in their shadow, and I’d like to give those other songs a moment in the spotlight.
But most of all, I want to spend time being … well, normal, or as normal as I can ever hope to be. Less time on the road means more time doing the school run, more Saturday afternoons taking the kids to Pizza Express, or round Daniel’s, the department store in Windsor – things the boys enjoy,
I live and have lived an extraordinary life, and I honestly wouldn’t change it, even the parts I regret, because I’m incredibly happy with how it has turned out. I obviously wish I’d just kept walking when I saw John Reid chopping out coke in the studio, rather than sticking my nose in – in every sense of the phrase – but then, maybe I had to go through all that to
end up where I am now. It’s not where I expected to be at all – married to a man, a father of two, both things that seemed impossible to me not that long ago.
But that’s the other lesson my ridiculous life has taught me. From the moment I was ushered out of a failed audition and handed an envelope of
Bernie’s lyrics as I got to the door, nothing has ever really turned out how I thought it would. My history is full of what ifs, weird little moments that hanged everything.
What if I’d been so upset by failing my audition that I’d dumped Bernie’s envelope in a bin on the way to the station? What if I’d stood firm and not gone to America when Dick James told me I should? What if Watford had beaten West Bromwich Albion that Saturday afternoon in the early nineties and lifted my spirits, so that I didn’t feel the need to call a friend and beg him to bring some gay men to dinner?
What if I hadn’t noticed Lev at the orphanage in Ukraine? Where would I be now? Who would I be now? You can send yourself crazy wondering. But it all happened, and here I am. There’s really no point in asking what if? The only question worth asking is: what’s next?
Browse in the Library:
Artist or Composer / Score name | Cover | List of Contents |
---|---|---|
Unforgettable – Irving Gordon (Nat King Cole Song) Piano Solo Sheet Music | Unforgettable – Irving Gordon (Nat King Cole Song) Piano Solo Sheet Music | |
Unforgettable Musical Memories – Reader’s Digest Songbook, A | Unforgettable Musical Memories – Reader’s Digest Songbook, A | |
Unforgettable… The Lighter Side Of Jazz | Unforgettable… The Lighter Side Of Jazz | |
UNITED – Look To You Guitar Songbook | ||
Universal Studios Theme by Jerry Goldsmith arr. Yame Puts | ||
University Musical Encyclopedia The Theory Of Music And Piano Technique (By E Markham) (1912) | Musical Encyclopedia I | |
Untraceable – Kill With Me – Christopher Young | ||
Untraceable – Missing Flowers – Christopher Young | ||
Uomini soli (Pooh) | ||
Up (Theme) Married Life By Ari Burns (Piano Solo) | ||
Up The – Married Life (Piano Solo Arr. Sheet Music) | Up The – Married Life (Piano Solo Arr. Sheet Music) | |
Upon The Wind There Comes A Song (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Upon The Wind, There Comes A Song Tradition Irish Melody | ||
Uriah Heep – Sheet Music songbook | Uriah Heep – Sheet Music songbook (Piano Vocal and Guitar Chords) | |
Urlicht (Gustav Mahler) | ||
Usher – Make Me Wanna | ||
Utada Hikaru-First love | ||
V.S.O.P. Super Jazz Sound Herbie Hancock, Tony illiams,Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard | V.S.O.P. Super Jazz Sound Herbie Hancock, Tony illiams,Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard | |
Valse (Fanfan OST) Nicolas Jorelle | ||
Valse Crepusculaire (Providence OST) Miklós Rózsa | ||
Valse Etude – William Gillock Piano Solo Musescore File.mscz | ||
Valse Op 51 N 1 – Fernando Sor (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Valzer del Commiato (Il Gattopardo OST) Nino Rota | ||
Valzer di Lupin (Lupin 3 OST) Franco Micalizzi | ||
Vampire Weekend Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Tab | Vampire Weekend Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Tab | |
Van Halen (Van Halen Songbook ) Guitar Full score with TABs | Van Halen (Van Halen Songbook ) Guitar Full score | |
Van Halen – 1984 Guitar TAB songbook transcribed by Brand McPhail | Van Halen – 1984 Guitar TAB songbook transcribed by Brand McPhail | |
Van Halen – 5 of the Best Play-It-Like-It-Is Guitar with TABs | Van Halen – 5 of the Best Play-It-Like-It-Is Guitar | |
Van Halen – Everybody Wants Some The Van Halen Saga (Book by Ian Christe) | ||
Van Halen – Jump | ||
Van Halen – Right Now | ||
Van Halen (Guitar Backing tracks with TABs) Jam with Van Halen – (with MP3 audio tracks to play along) | Jam with van Halen | |
Van Halen 30 Classics From The Legendary Guitar God (Authentic Guitar Tab) (Authentic Guitar Tab Editions) | Van Halen 30 classics | |
Van Halen Anthology Guitar songbook with TABs | Van Halen Anthology Guitar songbook | |
Van Mccoy – Baby Im Yours | ||
Van Morrison Have I Told You Lately That I Love You (Rod Stewart Ver.) | Van Morrison Have I Told You Lately That I Love You (Rod Stewart Ver.) | |
Van Morrison The Guitar Collection with TABs | Van Morrison The Guitar Collection | |
Van Morrison – Anthology Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | Van Morrison – Anthology Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | |
Van Morrison – Back On Top Book Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | Van Morrison – Back On Top Book Songbook Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | |
Van Morrison – Have I Told You Lately That I Love You (Rod Stewart Ver.) (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece Piano Vocal Guitar Chords | |
Van Morrison Sheet Music Anthology | Van Morrison Sheet Music Anthology | |
Van(Var) (A Silent Voice) | ||
Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Afterglow | ||
Vanessa Carlton – All I Ask | ||
Vanessa Carlton – All Is Well | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Ameriteen | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Birdie | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Burden | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Cest La Vie | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Dark Carnival | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Devil Dance | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Faces | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Half A Week Before The Winter | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Last Fall | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Little Mary | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Meggie Sue | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Morning Sting | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Ordinary Day | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Papa | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Pretty Baby | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Private Radio | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Put Your Hands On Me | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Red Ditty | ||
Vanessa Carlton – San Francisco | ||
Vanessa Carlton – She Floats | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Swindler | ||
Vanessa Carlton – The One | ||
Vanessa Carlton – The Wreckage | ||
Vanessa Carlton – This Time | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Time Is On My Side | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Twilight | ||
Vanessa Carlton – White Houses | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Whos To Say | ||
Vanessa Carlton – Wonder | ||
Vanessa Carlton Harmonium Songbook | Vanessa Carlton Harmonium Songbook | |
Vanessa Williams – Colors Of The Wind | ||
Vanessa Williams – Save The Best For Last | ||
Vanessa’s dream – Penny Dreadful OST (Abel Korzeniowski) | ||
Vangelis Antarctica Guitar Arr With Tabs (1 or 2 Guitars with Tablature) | Vangelis Antarctica Guitar Arr With Tabs (1 or 2 Guitars with Tablature) | |
Vangelis – Antarctica Guitar arr with TABs (1 or 2 guitars).mscz | ||
Vangelis – Blade Runner – Piano in an Empty Room | ||
Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire | Vangelis Charriots of fire | |
Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire (Guitar with TABs) | Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire (Guitar with TABs) | |
Vangelis – Conquest Of Paradise | Vangelis – Conquest Of Paradise | |
Vangelis – Conquest Of Paradise (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Vangelis – Five Circles from Chariots of Fire (Guitar arr. with Tablature) | Vangelis – Five Circles from Chariots of Fire (Guitar arr. with Tablature) | |
Vangelis – L’enfant (from The Year of Living Dangerously) (Guitar with TABs) | Vangelis – L’enfant (from The Year of Living Dangerously) (Guitar with TABs) | |
Vangelis – La Petite Fille De La Mere (from L’Apocalypse des Animaux) (Guitar with TABs) | Vangelis – La Petite Fille De La Mere (from L’Apocalypse des Animaux) (Guitar with TABs) | |
Vangelis – La Petite Fille De La Mere (Guitar TABs) | ||
Vangelis – Missing Main Theme From the film Missing (Guitar TABs) | Vangelis – Missing Main Theme From the film Missing (Guitar TABs) | |
Vangelis – Missing Main Theme From the film Missing (Piano) | Vangelis – Missing Main Theme From the film Missing (Piano) | |
Vangelis – Prelude | ||
Vangelis – The Best Of (piano songbook) | ||
Vangelis Aphrodite’s Child Rain And Tears Guitar | ||
Vangelis Heaven and Hell Piano Solo | ||
Vangelis La Petite Fille De La Mer piano solo | ||
Variations In Merry Go Round Of Life – Joe Hisaishi | Variations In Merry Go Round Of Life – Joe Hisaishi | |
Vassiliev Konstantin Three Forest Painting Guitar | ||
Vassiliev, Konstatin Alba (1996) Guitar Sheet Music With Tabs | ||
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending (Violin and Piano Reduction) | ||
Vaughan Williams – Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending Piano violin arr. by J. Godderis | ||
Vaughan Williams On Music Oxford Un. by David Manning (Book) | ||
Vavilov Vladimir Ave Maria (Wrongly Attributed To G.Caccini) Piano And Two Voices | ||
Vavilov Vladimir – Ave Maria (Wrongly Attributed To G.Caccini) Piano And Two Voices (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Vazha Azarashvili – Nocturne | ||
Vazha Azarashvili – Nostalgia | ||
Vazha Azarashvili Sentimental Tango (4 hands piano sheet music) | Vazha Azarashvili Sentimental Tango (4 hands piano sheet music) first page | |
Vazha Azarashvili Sentimental Tango (piano solo sheet music) | Vazha Azarashvili Sentimental Tango (piano solo sheet music) | |
Vedrai vedrai (Luigi Tenco) | ||
Velazquez, Consuelo Amar Y Vivir (Guitarra, Guitar) | ||
Vengaboys – Boom Boom Boom | ||
Venice (Only You OST) Rachel Portman | ||
Verdi Il Trovatore – Anvil Chorus Piano Solo | ||
Verdi Va Pensiero Piano Solo Arr. Nabucco Acte III Choeur Des Ésclaves Hébreux | Verdi Va Pensiero Piano Solo Arr. Nabucco Acte III Choeur Des Ésclaves Hébreux | |
Verdi – La Donna è Mobile | ||
Verdi – La Donna È Mobile (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Verdi – La Traviatta – Piano Solo arr. |