Elton John picks his favourite song by The Rolling Stones
Whilst Elton John and The Rolling Stones might have endured a rather shaky relationship, it hasn’t stopped signs of mutual respect over the years. Despite all the cutting barbs John has received from The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards – and vice-versa – the Rocketman has mentioned one of their songs as one of his all-time favourites.
There must have been extensive background behind Keith Richards’ declaration that he won’t miss Elton John after his farewell tour concluded and the pop star enters retirement, given that there will now be more room for the Rolling Stones. “More room for us!” Richards said on the matter, “After three years on the road with Elton, you would want to retire, too. I’ll take his word for it.”
Demonstrating the bizarre nature of their quarrel, Richards continued, “He’s a lovable old dear”. After the sharp quip, he even posited that Elton John is “softening with age”. Concluding on whether he will miss the singer after he’s gone, Richards maintained, “Not at all”.
Before we get to Elton John’s favourite Rolling Stones song, a brief refresher of their relationship and how he came to butt heads with Keith Richards is in order. Prepare for unabashed vitriol.
What started the friction between The Rolling Stones and Elton John?
The history between both parties is complicated. However, over the past few decades, Elton John has been ensconced in an ongoing feud with Keith Richards, which was taken up a notch when John suggested the London band are “irrelevant” during a US radio interview.
No one is sure of what exactly started the problems, but the moment John played with The Rolling Stones in Colorado in the 1980s has been named on numerous occasions as the catalyst. At the time, the singer-songwriter was deep in the throes of his cocaine addiction, which came to the fore in this musical cameo.
“If anything, cocaine gave me too much confidence for my own good,” John recalled in his autobiography, Me. Adding: “If I hadn’t been coked out of my head when the Rolling Stones turned up in Colorado and asked me to come onstage with them, I might have just performed ‘Honky Tonk Women’, waved to the crowd and made my exit.”
Since then, Elton and The Rolling Stones have partaken in numerous public rows. Most notorious of all was when Richards, an ardent anti-monarchist, criticised Elton’s decision to re-release the threnody ‘Candle in the Wind’ in a tribute to the late Princess Diana. In response, John told the New York Daily News: “I’m glad I’ve given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He’s pathetic, poor thing. It’s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go on stage and look young.”
Elton John prefers the early work of The Rolling Stones
However, in that same interview, John praised The Rolling Stones’ early work and named their 1963 cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Come On’ – their debut single – as a highlight. He said: “I have great respect for the Stones, but they would have been better if they had thrown Keith out 15 years ago… I just think he’s an a-hole, and I have for a long time…what I think the Rolling Stones should do is a great blues record and go back to what they used to do – and do things like ‘Come On’ – the Chuck Berry song like they did in their early career. That is what they should do.”
After that double-edged compliment, in 2016, Elton brought up the ‘Come On’ cover again before he made his now-infamous inference that The Stones are irrelevant. He told a US radio station: “What I think the Rolling Stones should do is a great blues record, and go back to what they used to do – and do things like ‘Come On’ – the Chuck Berry song like they did in their early career. That is what they should do.”
He added: “I think Mick wants to still be relevant on the radio – well, they are not. And I think Keith would love to do a record like that. And that is what they should be doing.”
Elton John names his favourite song by The Rolling Stones
Indeed, when it came to appearing on the BBC’s flagship radio show Desert Island Discs, Elton John named his favourite song by The Rolling Stones, and interestingly, it wasn’t ‘Come On’. He did, however, choose another Chuck Berry cover by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the gang. This is ‘Let It Rock’, which was first played live by the band in the early 1970s and released as the B-side to 1971’s ‘Brown Sugar’.
