As Brandy Carlisle watched Elton John: Never too late, he was so moved that he put pen to paper and was immediately inspired to write a song. The new documentary chronicles the first five years of Elton John's meteoric rise and the road to his two dates at Dodger Stadium in 1975 juxtaposing his final tour culminating in his triumphant return to Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium in 2022.
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The song, “Never Too Late”, performed by John and Carlile, not only became the ending song, but also became the title track of the film (watch the video for the track below). Elton John: Never too late is available in select theaters Friday (November 15) and streaming on Disney+ starting December 13.
The documentary, helmed by RJ Cutler and David Furnish, was originally called Farewell yellow brick road“which was really boring,” says John Bulletin board. And then Carlile's song “just summed up the whole documentary perfectly,” he continues. “What he saw he wrote in a very succinct way and condensed all that hour and 40 minutes into one verse, which was incredible.”
“I was moved by what I saw. I especially liked some of that historical footage, and it just sent me back to my whole childhood,” says Carlile. “I felt like my life admiring Elton kind of flashed before my eyes. And I came to this conclusion that I had something to say about him and that I wanted him to say,” he says.
The idea of words for John that John hadn't written coming out of John's mouth had captivated Carlisle since she was about 11 years old and first heard them Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt CowboyJohn's 1975 autobiographical album about his relationship with longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin; The album became the first to enter the Billboard album chart at No. 1.
“I remember looking at the liner notes Captain Fantastic and seeing him perform this autobiographical rock opera that was written by another guy about Elton and it was just like the greatest love story I think I'd ever seen,” Carlyle says.
Credited to Carlile, John, Taupin and producer Andrew Watt, “Never Too Late” examines how it's never too late for new adventures and moving forward.
Carlile's lyrics emphasize John's tendency not to look back, a trait he admired in John Lennon when he and the Beatle became friends in the 1970s. As John remarks in the film, he “loves people who think about tomorrow, not yesterday.”
“I like that Elton doesn't like to think about himself,” Carlyle says. “He's very proactive. It's way ahead. And I'm so inspired by that roughness. I don't think rough is a word quite associated with Elton John. He's really tough and has been through a lot. And I just wanted to pause and slow it down and write a verse about it for him to sing because he doesn't like to say nice things about himself.”
Carlile didn't allow herself to be intimidated when she handed the lyrics to John to see if he felt inspired to set them to music. “I think I took a page out of his book and just didn't look back and just gave them to him,” she says. “But now, in hindsight, yes, that should have been scary because it's absolutely the cornerstone of everything that I am, not just musically, but it's influenced me as an activist and as a mother and as a gay person living in the world. I'm so happy it turned out this way.”
The song opens with instantly recognizable piano chords played by John, and he says the music just poured out of him. “It was really easy to write because it's such a great lyric and, obviously, I knew what it was about,” says John. “For him to write something about me and Bernie — as Brandy says, we go hand in hand.”
The documentary, through animation, recreates the serendipitous moment when John and Taupin connected more than 55 years ago through their publishing company by giving John Taupin lyrics in an envelope. As familiar as the story is, it still seems like a kind of modern wonder to this day—even to John.
“It's one of the greatest glories and mysteries of my life, as I was fortunate enough to meet Bernie and the incident involved,” says John. “I appreciate our relationship and our writing more and more. [Brandy] mentioned it Captain Fantastic album, which I think is probably my best album because it's about us. It's so personal. Once he gave me the lyrics, it was so easy to write because it was about us. It's not something like 'Tiny Dancer' or 'Madman Across the Water' or 'Levon' or anything like that. The more I think about and appreciate Bernie's lyrics, the better they get and the more satisfied I feel. What a life! What a life we've led.”
Taupin and John, the documentary notes, were extremely prolific in those early years, with John releasing 13 albums between 1970 and 1975, including four in one year.
“It was called adrenaline and gratitude and love for what I was doing. I was a candy story kid,” says John. “I was playing America. I was meeting Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt, all these wonderful people. I was looking at their albums on the floor and listening to them on headphones. I'm an unusual guy, I guess, but when they give you lyrics that are this good and Bernie keeps writing them, we couldn't stop. We were like a tap that never ends.”
As the documentary depicts, however, that life was full of pain at times. As John's star rose, he felt very lonely and turned to drugs to help fill the void when he was off stage. “My music saved me when I was addicted to drugs and going through bad times. I didn't close myself off. When I was sad, I played music and when I was happy, I played music,” says John. “When I was unhappy, I still went on stage and music for two hours took me out of my sadness. And so, you know, music saved me. To Godit saved me because I wasn't sitting at home taking a lot of drugs.”
The documentary contrasts those 1975 Dodger Stadium dates and the emptiness John felt offstage with the 2022 Dodger date and the fullness he felt surrounded by his husband, Furnish, and their two young sons.
These days, two years after retiring from the road, John says he doesn't miss the scene at all — in fact, quite the opposite.
“I made a scene inside Vertebral tap 2where we had to drive to a Coliseum in New Orleans, and David was in the back of the car with me. And I said, “David, I'm having a panic attack. I don't want to go back to doing those things.' I do the odd charity show, the odd private show, but I don't want to tour again.'
He also has no time. John had two musicals open this fall: The Devil Wears Prada in London's West End and Tammy Faye on Broadway.
Both John and Carlile had concerns while watching the documentary.
For Carlile, the film taught another life lesson than her boyfriend. “[Elton’s] it gave me so many things, but what it gave me that is most relevant to this film is that it gave me energy to move forward in my life. To ask, 'What is now and what is next' and not dwell in the past.”
For John, as he watched archive footage he had never seen before, including the recording Goodbye Yellow Brick Road at the Chateau studio in France, “it confirmed the fact that we were making good music. The documentary really helped me with my attitude towards my previous catalogue: it was very good.'
John may have been the only one who had any doubts about his early production, and Carlyle loves that the film forced John to acknowledge a job well done.
“I love that this documentary is a forced reflection on his accomplishments and that he has to sit there and watch a story of kindness unfold about what he's done for the world,” she says. “I like that he got to see it. I like that he has to think. I love that he's sitting here saying his music was really good. It's good that this happened [foisted] on it and it is an inspiration. That's why I wrote the song.”
Watch John and Carlile's video for “Never Too Late” below.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/elton-john-brandi-carlile-talk-writing-music-documentary-never-too-late-video-1235830143/
