[Host] You’ve been told
you have 24 hours left to live.
What song would you play?
[upbeat music]
Help.
[chuckles]
The Tina Turner version.
[chuckles]
Help!
[upbeat drum music]
[Host] It’s a Friday night
and you’re 15 years old.
When I was 15 years old,
that would have been,
1962.
Don’t know,
probably something by,
yeah, the Beatles,
I would have been listening to the Beatles
and probably,
Love Me Do.
A friend of mine at school,
Michael Johnson bought me,
he bought the record Love Me Do,
which had, PS I Love You
on the B-side,
it was their first single.
And he said,
this is going be the biggest band in the world.
And he joined their fan club and in fact,
he’s still alive.
I speak to him from time to time.
He’s number four in their fan club.
So, he was on the money right away.
I mean, if it were Saturday,
I would say,
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
But I was listening to Elton
like full time,
when I was 15 years old.
So, it would be,
Your Sister Can’t Twist,
sister can’t twist but she can rock and roll.
[Elton chuckles]
♪ Sister can’t twist, but she can rock and roll ♪
♪ Out bucks the rodeo on the rodeo do ♪
♪ She’s only fifteen, but it’s plain to see ♪
♪ But she can pull the wool over little old me ♪
♪ Your sister can’t twist ♪
♪ But she can rock and roll ♪
♪ Your sister can’t twist but ♪
♪ Got more soul than me ♪
[both laughing]
[Host] It’s your kid’s first day of school.
What are you playing?
Teach Your Children
by Crosby, Stills and Nash.
They wrote songs about,
you know, what was going on,
listening and trying to be loving.
There was a lovely time of music
when Crosby, Stills and Nash were making records.
♪ I’ll stand by you ♪
♪ I’ll stand by you ♪
Ah, The Pretenders. ♪ won’t let nobody hurt you ♪
Yeah, by The Pretenders Yeah. [chuckles]
That’s a great one.
Yeah.
We’re DJ’s right now.
This is cool.
[Host] You’ve spent
the past two hours doomscrolling.
I would listen to,
Everybody Hurts,
[device clicking]
[Elton] Mm-hmm. by R.E.M.
Shout,
by The Isley Brothers.
♪ You know you make me wanna shout ♪
Watching the news
always made you want to shout,
yeah. Yes, it does.
[Host] You’ve woken up
in the middle of the night,
and you can’t fall back asleep.
I would play Motherland by Natalie Merchant,
’cause I love that song so much
and it always makes me mellow
while I listen to it.
It’s so lilting,
it’s like a lullaby.
I’m writing that down. I’d probably play that one.
What is it?
Motherland?
Motherland
by Natalie Merchant.
[sighs] You know,
this does happen to me,
and what I do listen to,
is Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing,
This Little Light of Mine.
I don’t know what that is.
It like speaks to my childhood self,
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I’m gonna let it shine, shine, shine ♪
[Host] You’re teaching
an eighth grade class about songwriting.
I would choose,
When I Fall in Love,
by Nat King Cole.
It is such a beautiful song.
I always remember that.
Or a Carole King and Gerry Goffin song,
because that’s a simple song to rock,
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.
It’s a simple song to play.
And it’s a beautiful song to sing.
So, I’ll go with Carole King and The Shirelles.
I would try to tap into their tendency towards
like, activism
and you know, altruism.
So, maybe like a Dylan song,
like…
The Times They Are A-Changin’
All you mothers and fathers
from across the land,
don’t criticize what you can’t understand,
your sons and your daughters
are beyond your command.
Your old road is rapidly aging.
So, get out of the new one,
if you cannot lend a hand.
Like, I think that would be a life-changing lyric
as a 14-year-old.
[Host] A young person
has come to you for advice.
Well, that’s a hard one.
Simple things, Elton
give them simple things.
Simple?
All right, simple things [both laughing]
It’s about,
you know,
the most simple things
in life are the most pleasurable,
and you know,
and when I played the song to Bono
in the south of France from U2,
he said, ah, this is a beautiful lyric,
and it is a beautiful lyric.
Elton didn’t write the lyric,
but it sounds like things that he would say,
it sounds like things that he does say,
you know, he’s reluctant to give advice,
because he’s not a pushy fellow,
but…
He always says
things along these lines
about where value is in life.
[Host] You’re thinking
about your own mortality.
I’ll go to one that I played for you,
last time I saw you, Elton.
Calling All Angels
by Jane Siberry.
Right,
oh, that’s beautiful yeah.
As a way of explaining mortality and renewal
that’s really comforting.
I would probably play
a song that I wrote with Bernie,
from the Captain Fantastic record
called, Curtains.
[ guest mimics adoration]
♪ I used to know ♪
♪ This old scarecrow ♪
Yeah.
♪ He was my life ♪
♪ My joy and sorrow ♪
So, you know,
me being a kind of a maudlin person,
I would probably play that,
because whenever I hear that,
it makes me feel about my life,
it makes me feel,
think about my life,
and think of what I’ve done,
what I’ve come from.
And it’s just-
It also makes me feel happy,
because of the relationship
that I’ve had with Bernie
and the love that I’ve had
throughout my life.
So, I would choose that one.
That is a perfect one.
And that last line,
Treasure’s children
always seem to find and just like us,
we must have had a once upon a time.
Yeah.
[mimics adoration]
That’s probably one of my favorite all-time
Elton-Bernie songs.
And with, Thank you.
We All Fall in Love Sometimes,
together. It’s very hard to sing it,
because I get very emotional of it,
because it’s preceded by,
We All Fall in Love Sometimes, Yeah.
and then, Curtains
comes straight after it.
So, it’s a very,
very emotional song for me to sing.
And therefore,
I don’t sing it very often,
because I choke up when I sing it.
Captain Fantastic was a story about Bernie and I.
So, it was something I felt
as an album,
I was completely part of the whole thing,
because it was a story about us.
So, it was very personal.
So, if you’re going to choose a song
that I wrote,
I’d choose that,
because it’s so personal.
And thank you for spending the time
talking to both of us.
Bye!
[Host] Bye! Bye!
[radio tuning]
[radio tuning fading]
