Sir Elton John revealed that he cried for 45 minutes as he reflected on his own mortality while recording a song for his upcoming album, Who Believes In Angels?
The music icon, who turns 78 on Tuesday, shared that during the recording of When This Old World Is Done With Me, he had a moment of realisation about his limited time, leading him to fear that he "doesn't have much time left."
The British singer, who wrapped up his farewell tour in 2023, has previously spoken about his struggles with sight loss, after an infection left him blind in his right eye and with "limited vision" in his left.
On the Smartless podcast, he described his emotional reaction to performing his new song alongside collaborator Brandi Carlile.
He said: “I wrote a song at the end of the album and I just get the lyrics, Bernie Taupin's lyrics called When This Old World Is Done With Me. And so I'm writing the verse, like, ‘Oh, this is really pretty.’
“And then I get to the chorus and of course it's about my death. And when you get to my age, which is near 100, you think, ‘How much time have I got left?’
“And you've got children, you've got a wonderful husband, you just think about mortality. And so when I got to the chorus, I just broke down for 45 minutes and it's all on film.”
Sir Elton admitted that he “cried hard” while working on the album with Carlile, and his reaction was recorded in his documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, which was released in October.
Speaking about the moment, Carlile interjected: “I want everybody to see it because it's really human, like deeply flawed and embarrassing. And the kind of s**t that you do when you forget that there is a camera on is what's really interesting.
“He got to the end of that chorus and his voice started to shake and I thought, ‘Oh, he's going, like he's going to really go’. And he went into a real moment.”
Meanwhile, he recently warned emerging talent that instant television fame such as The X Factor is the “worst thing” and advised aspiring artists to “go and play in a pub” instead.
