Elton John’s favourite Pink Floyd song
For the past six decades, Elton John has been an immovable object in the world of music. His career eclipsed even the wildest expectations when he started his journey, and John adores nothing more than the art form to which he’s dedicated his life.
As a three-year-old, John was bitten by the bug of music for the first time when he started to learn the piano. He immediately showed a prodigal skill for the instrument, and it’s been part of him ever since. Even if John had never gained fame or fortune, he would have undoubtedly carved out an illustrious career in session work, which would have still been a dream come true.
Despite achieving everything there is to do in the music business and having several million records sold to his name, John remains equally committed to the discovery of new music. Nevertheless, for as much as he’s in adoration of acts like Fontaines DC, who he recently hailed as “the best band out there right now”, he also has a place in his heart that will never be replaced for the music that soundtracked earlier parts of his life.
The 1970s was the decade that changed everything for Elton. Over this period, he went from living an ordinary life with aspirations of becoming a musical professional to the most prominent solo artist in the world. Adjacently, Pink Floyd enjoyed a similar rise from cutting their teeth at the UFO Club in London to selling out vast venues and having the world’s eyes following their every move. While they had their differences musically and appealed to largely separate demographics, John greatly appreciated the work of his peers.
Admittedly, he wasn’t inspired to follow in their footsteps by creating an album in the vein of The Wall, but their experimental sounds lit up his life nonetheless.
While he adores most compositions released under the Pink Floyd banner, John has admitted he couldn’t live without one song in their back catalogue, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. It famously appeared on Pink Floyd’s game-changing album, Wish You Were, and was penned as a tribute to their fallen former bandmate Syd Barrett.
Tragically, Barrett’s mental health issues had led to him being forced to leave Pink Floyd and, eventually, the music industry. He later became a recluse and a shadow of his former self, who once looked set to be a generational star. While Pink Floyd initially tried to assist Barrett in his solo career, they later fell out of contact, and he sadly became a stranger. One of their last encounters with him came in 1974. At this stage, he was living out of a London hotel, but his money and luck were starting to run dry.
Having cut contact with his former bandmates, his arrival at the recording studio shocked his once closest associates. He was visibly a completely different entity from the one they had last seen a few years previously. Tragically, the musician had become heavily bloated, and even though he was physically there in the studio, mentally, he was not.
For that reason, the song means a great deal to the members of Pink Floyd. However, Elton has his own emotional connection to ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, unrelated to Barrett.
When he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1986, Elton explained his feelings toward the song. His story is a stirring anecdote about how a crying mother approached him and his lyric-writing partner, Bernie Taupin, to ask if her son, who was suffering from cancer, could meet the pair.
Of course, they duly obliged and spent multiple evenings with the child. During those precious times, the group listened to Pink Floyd’s album Wish You Were Here, and one night, as the sun was setting, the group decided to pray for the boy’s health as ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ played.
Thankfully, there is a happy ending. “Three years later,” remembered John. “There was a knock on my hotel, and this guy said ‘Hi, it’s Steve’, and I said ‘Yes, can I help you?’. It was the same boy, all muscular like Sylvester Stallone, perfectly healthy.”
For that reason, the song has a special meaning for the singer. Whenever he hears the track, it brings the memories flooding back, and he appreciates the sanctity of life.
John also shares a personal link to Pink Floyd. The singer has been friends with David Gilmour for several decades, and the pair even collaborated on the 1992 effort ‘Understanding Women’. Additionally, when the latter’s son, Charlie, was sent to prison in 2011 for protesting the increase in tuition fees for students, John sent him a box of books, and they’ve remained in touch since.
For the members of Pink Floyd, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ is inescapably entrenched in sadness over Syd Barrett’s decline. This feeling starkly contrasts Elton’s sentiments attached to the creation, and in his eyes, it’s far more than just a song but a reason to be cheerful.
