The last show Elton John ever sang in his original voice: “It started to change”
It’s only natural for some artists to change their voice over the years. Everyone knew that there was no way that Paul McCartney could hit those Little Richard screams the same way that he did in his prime.
And for as much as an alien as David Bowie seemed to appear, there were only so many times he could slip into the voice of Ziggy Stardust before he started making adjustments. However, not many people have the same experience as Elton John, where their voice seemed to change on a dime within one show.
Then again, everyone who has been listening to John’s music for the past few years knows he has taken things down a notch since his prime. The high notes from ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ will forever be a thing of the past, and even though fans might be disappointed that they aren’t hearing the true version of ‘Crocodile Rock’ whenever they see him in concert, John is probably completely fine not having to play some of his higher tunes like he did throughout the 1970s.
But given what he put his body through, John’s lucky that he could produce a note again after so many years of drug abuse. He had put his body through everything imaginable when it came to cocaine use, and by the time he had finally come up for air, he realised that he was going to have to give up his bad habits or say goodbye to his voice for good.
When he reached Australia in 1987, though, John knew that it was the last time that he was going to be able to play in his traditional style. Doctors had already discovered cancerous growths on his throat, and while he soldiered through his set with the lavish costumes as before, there was no way that he was going to produce the same soaring falsetto notes that he did after the surgery.
Once out of the operating chair, John said he had to drastically switch up what he had been doing, saying later, “My voice is the thing that’s really improved the most over the last few years. There’s more resonance to it. It started to change when I had the operation in Australia after the live album [Live In Australia], because of the nine cancerous… whatever it was on my vocal cords.” If this was the last hurrah, though, he picked a damn good note to go out on as well.
Although most of the set plays out like a glorified greatest hits record, some of the greatest moments come when he switches up the arrangements on a handful of tunes. ‘Candle in the Wind’ is an incredible song in its studio form, but the live version of the tune is miles better, thanks to John putting in a little pause in the last line of the chorus. It’s one of the simplest touches he could have made, but it makes the end of the section land a lot better.
And listening to his later material, it’s not like John has sacrificed any of his artistic integrity or anything. If nothing else, the lower resonance of his voice has actually helped him sing in the same vein as some of his songwriting heroes, complete with the same kind of grit that all of the cowboys that he idolised as a kid had whenever they came onscreen.
It’s unfortunate that songs like ‘Bennie and the Jets’ might be missing some of those soaring parts whenever he played them live, but that doesn’t take away from them being great songs. John had simply grown as a singer, and listening to his classics along with his newer material feels like listening to two classic artists trapped in one man’s body.
