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Elton John · S6 E6
The Voice
Nodules on his vocal cords. Surgery that changes his instrument forever. The tenor is gone; the baritone that replaces it will serve him for 40 more years
January 1987. Elton John checks into a private hospital in Sydney after two hundred concerts in fifteen months, and a doctor tells him the nodules on his vocal cords need to come out.
Elton John -- Circle of Life (1994). The voice singing this is not the one he was born with. After surgery in 1987, the soaring tenor of "Your Song" was replaced by a deeper, richer baritone. This is the instrument the surgery gave him, and it turns out the world needed it too.
Two Hundred Shows
The damage comes from fifteen months of relentless touring. Two hundred concerts, night after night, while the cocaine burns his throat and the bulimia wrecks his body from the inside. By the time Elton reaches Australia in late 1986, the pain is constant. The New York Times describes them as "spasmodic bouts of pain."
“I finally summoned up the courage to say three words that would change my life: 'I need help.'”
— Elton John
TAP TO REVEAL: What did the surgery actually take from Elton's voice?
St. Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney
Where Elton underwent surgery on January 5, 1987. Dr. John Tonkin removed the non-malignant lesion from his vocal cords. The operation took place while Australian tabloids speculated about throat cancer.
The New Instrument
The recovery is fast. Reg Strikes Back arrives in 1988, and Sleeping with the Past follows in 1989 to become his best-selling album of the decade. The voice is different, but it works. In some ways, it works better.
The Voice: Before and After
What physical change did the 1987 vocal cord surgery cause in Elton's singing voice?
Sleeping with the Past -- Elton John
The title track from his 1989 album, his best-selling record of the decade. This is the new voice at its best: deeper, rougher, more lived-in. Bernie's lyrics are about reckoning with your history, which is exactly what Elton is doing. The piano playing is gentler here, like the voice, it has stopped trying to prove anything.
Sleeping with the Past, Elton John (1989)
Bernie writes about lying next to your own history, unable to escape it. The title works on two levels: as a love song, and as an admission that the past is never really gone. The new baritone voice makes every word sound heavier, more lived-in, more true.
The Voice That Lasted
The tenor of "Your Song" recorded a decade and a half of classics. The baritone that replaced it will carry Elton through thirty-seven more years of performing, thousands more concerts, and one very long goodbye tour. The surgery took something. It also gave something back.
The voice has changed, but the addictions haven't. Next season: a young boy named Ryan White, rock bottom at an Indiana funeral, and the phone call that finally leads Elton John to rehab.
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To be continued
Season 7: Recovery
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