The next book on my reading list was tricky to work into the Indigo Reading Challenge checklist I’ve been using, not because it didn’t fit into any of the categories but because I couldn’t decide which category fit it best. Ultimately, I decided that this would be my book by an LGBTQ2+ author. It almost ended up in another category, but I had to factor in where some of the other books I want to read this year fall on the list.
Shortly after watching Rocketman in theatres, I went out and grabbed myself a copy of Me by Elton John. And I knew that I wanted to read this autobiography sooner rather than later. So, true to form, the book has been sitting untouched on my shelf for about a year. To be fair, with all the chaos of 2020, I didn’t read much of anything that year. Still, I was really looking forward to reading this book.
I don’t normally gravitate towards biographies/autobiographies. In fact, I could probably count the number of biographies/autobiographies I’ve ever read on one hand (assuming I haven’t forgotten any). But I didn’t simply buy Me just because I had seen Rocketman. I am genuinely a fan of Elton John. It runs in the family. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one of the staple CDs we had in the car growing up. And I vividly remember listening to “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” as my mom drove me and my sister to dance classes. My mom has always been an Elton John fan, and I’ve heard many of her stories on the subject, but I really became an Elton John fan because of my dad. He and I have never had a good relationship, but one of the things we always bonded over was music. Even though many of my “good” memories with him have become tainted over the years, the memories I have of him that remain good center around music. Not only did my dad and I listen to the entire Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album MANY times when he drove me to/from school, but my dad was always ready to share trivia about Elton John – and many other musicians.
Between the trivia I learned from my dad, and the information I learned from watching Rocketman, there were a lot of moments in Me that I was already aware of. But there was also plenty of information about Elton John that I did not already know. This was both an informative and entertaining read. And it was a fairly fast and easy read too. I easily stayed up too late on a handful of nights, trying to get through just one more chapter before bed. The only downside to reading this autobiography was that I kept getting Elton John songs stuck in my head while I was trying to fall asleep. That’s not entirely a bad problem to have. It also brought back a lot of memories I had about conversations with my dad about music. Personally, I got a lot out of reading this book because of that. But family stuff aside, I highly recommend checking out this autobiography if you’re interested in the music of Elton John.
