Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me

This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. Written with honesty and candour, Scatterhot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of '70s and '80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man's experience at the core of it. An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit New York with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame, spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel, and we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century.