Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me

There are two things I was hoping find in the pages of Bernie Taupin's memoir: 1) juicy stories about his partnership with the brilliant, outrageous Elton John, and 2) insights about how Taupin wrote the lyrics to some of Elton's most memorable songs. There's very little of the former, which, fair, Elton has his own memoir ([b:Me 44303730 Me Elton John https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553526563l/44303730.SY75.jpg 68837791]), and Taupin is too good of a friend to resort to salacious gossip. But there's only a limited amount of the latter too, with brief mentions of a handful of songs. Instead, the bulk of the book is Taupin regaling the reader with stories of his own escapades with BFFs like Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Frank Sinatra, Cher, and other less-famous buds. There are also lengthy detours into music history, descriptions of the many exotic locations he's visited, and odes to his lifelong dream of becoming an American cowboy. I skimmed through the book, looking for references to Elton and their songs, but Taupin's dense, rambling prose made that task a slog. Without Elton's music, the words lose all their magic.