On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide by Matthew Restall

On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide

by Matthew Restall

Oxford University Press 2025

“For the sake of my Bibliography’s thematic coherence, I have not included in it works on the Aztecs.” Delightfully, this sentence is to be found in a new book about Elton John, the latest in Oxford University Press’ small “Opinionated Guide” series covering luminaries of pop culture. As well as being the author of this volume, Matthew Restall is an extensively published historian of early Latin American history, which is lamentably atypical for authors in this series, or authors of books about Elton John.

In reality, there are only a couple of references to the Maya and the Aztecs, with Restall’s expertise becoming evident from the way it is completely integrated into his approach. The historian takes a long view of his subject, notices patterns, connects dots and offers interpretations. Restall applies this to Elton John with often astounding success, giving an unprecedentedly coherent view of a remarkably varied and enduring career.

Constrained by his format, Restall does not attempt to write a short biography. Instead, he organizes his treatment in roughly chronological standalone chapters around themes and people, each one building to an aspect of a theory that unifies the material presented and contributes to a complete image of the subject. If my language recalls that of science, it is in contrast to that found in the book, which consciously recalls mythology.

Helped by the colossal extravagance of his subject, the author often manages to produce an illusion, the feeling that we are not reading about an Englishman in purple glasses but about some kind of elemental sprite or demigod (Elton’s legally assumed middle name is Hercules). This is not an artifact of hagiography, but a literary conceit which has at its heart the various downfalls and rebirths in John’s career.

The book deals in very original ways with the singer’s relationship with his seniors, with his peers, with younger stars and even with the Royals. Other than that of lyricist Bernie Taupin, David Bowie’s name is the only one missing from the Index on account of its ubiquity in the volume, with the cool protean performer acting as an opposite to our ever uncool hero. One of Restall’s major organising ideas is the generalisation of John’s famous collecting habits, which he uses to explain his also famous penchant for mentorship and collaboration:

For many years, between the late 1970s and early 1990s, the press had been vile to John, and he was well aware of the cruelty that Spears had endured… “Britney was broken. I was broken when I got sober… Now I’ve got the experience to be able to advise people and help them…” Here we see Elton’s collecting impulse from childhood, evolved into a mentoring impulse as a young man, enhanced in middle age by a post-rehab empathy (with a dab of survivor’s guilt), fully developed in old age by the experience of philanthropic and paternal satisfaction.

That is the most austere the prose gets, as Restall’s affection for the subject - his fandom - is ever present, making him an energized and, at times, corny companion. He exhibits the superfan’s need to defend John and to explain the longueurs of his career. Had it been called a biography we would call it toothless, but as it stands it only justifies the title of the series to which it belongs. Fellow superfans - I’m speaking as a veteran one - will find nothing new here, other than a recurring sense of revelation, and the satisfaction of feeling previously disparate pieces of knowledge suddenly connect. It is an invigorating experience.

It should be noted that the editing of the book feels haphazard. My finished copy, for instance, has it that Andrew Lloyd Webber co-wrote a song on the Jump Up! album, when that was actually Tim Rice. Restall is otherwise meticulous, ever the historian, although even he doesn’t provide a source for the common, incredible claim that “in 1975, one in fifty records sold worldwide, in all genres of music, had Elton John’s name on the cover.”  Mythology claims one last feat of Hercules.

Nikolas Mavreas is a reader living in Athens, Greece.