Saturday June 11, 2022 “The Bitch Is Back” Elton John
Yes, even Elton John can be censored...or at least they can try.
Elton John is such a great singer/songwriter that the term genius just doesn’t really cover it. If we were to measure his talents in record sales alone he has sold over 300 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 2019, Billboard ranked him as the Greatest Solo artist of all time. Elton John has accumulated nine number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and seven number one albums on Billboard 200.
Those who know me will be familiar with this tale from the Elton John biopic Rocketman but it speaks to his remarkable talent. As an eleven year old boy he was auditioning for the Royal Academy of Music and he sat waiting to be called as the auditioner played a complex classical piece but stopped short of finishing it when she saw the young boy waiting.
“Well let’s hear what you’ve got” she said to him and he sat down and replicated the piece up to the point where she had stopped. She inquired, “Why didn’t you continue?” to which he replied, “That was as far as you got and I don’t know the rest of the piece.” He was playing it by ear.
So who is this evil ‘bitch’ that Elton is singing about? Turns out the “bitch” is Elton.
It seems one day when he was in a foul mood, complaining about anything and everything and Bernie Taupin's wife, Maxine, saw him and said "Uh-Oh, the bitch is back." Bernie Taupin, who was Elton's lyricist, thought it was a great phrase. He wrote lyrics around it and Elton put it to music.
For all the censor’s efforts this bitchy Elton John single was a top five hit.
Stay safe and well…and so the censors wouldn’t miss it Elton repeats “bitch” forty two times in the song.