‘At my age, I can rant!’ Bernie Taupin on Elton John, hellraising vampires and competing in full-blown rodeos

He is the outstanding lyricist who propelled the Rocket Man to 300m sales. As Taupin releases a wistfully grouchy solo album, he talks about the joy of anonymity, his LA drinking gang – and owning a prize-winning bucking bull Bernie Taupin has an interesting take on the strange brand of fame he enjoys. “I am,” he says, “what I call the credit card guy.” I’m sorry? You’re the what? “The credit card guy. I go somewhere, like a shop or a restaurant, and it’s fine. I can be me, no one notices. Then I pay with my credit card and they see the name and go” – he lets out a mock gasp – “‘You’re that guy!’ And I’m the luckiest man in the world in regards to that. I absolutely, positively, 100% love my anonymity, the fact I can walk down the street. I mean, even my contemporaries, people I know – I find I have to introduce myself to them. I was at the Americanafest in Nashville recently and Robert Plant was playing. I hadn’t seen him in years and he said he wanted to meet up. So I walked towards him and there’s that look: ‘Oh God, who the hell’s this?’ ‘Hey, Robert, it’s Bernie!’ ‘Oh my gosh!’ And the next night, we had dinner together.” It’s a neat summation of the curious situation Taupin finds himself in. He is half of one of the most successful songwriting partnerships in history: not all the songs on the 300m records Elton John has sold feature Taupin’s lyrics, but the vast majority do. Furthermore, Taupin has never been an invisible presence in the duo. There’s a photo of him on the sleeve of virtually all of John’s most famous albums: on 1975’s Rock of the Westies, he’s resplendent in a quite extraordinary pair of fringed leather chaps and a shirt open to the navel. Continue reading...