Elton John – "Burn Down the Mission" (1970)

Behind four walls of stone, the rich man sleeps

It’s time we put the flame torch to their keep

So have you figured out what this year’s “28 Songs in 28 Days” theme is yet?  (It’s super simple . . . )

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In 1958, the eleven-year-old Reginald Kenneth Dwight won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music.

Dwight was something of a child prodigy – one of his instructors said that after listening to an unfamiliar Handel piece, he sat down at a piano and played it back note for note.

The young Reginald Kenneth Dwight

“Reggie” Dwight got a gig playing popular standards in a pub when he was 15.  Shortly thereafter, he and some friends formed a band they called Bluesology, which kept busy backing touring American soul and R&B acts (including the Isley Brothers and Patti LaBelle).

In 1967, Dwight answered a magazine ad placed by Liberty Records, which was recruiting songwriters.  When he went to Liberty’s offices, an A&R man gave him an unopened envelope with lyrics by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad.  Dwight wrote music to go with the lyrics and mailed it to Taupin.  

Within a year, Dwight – who had started going by the name “Elton John” in honor of two of his fellow Bluesology members (saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry) – and Taupin were hired as a songwriting team by a different record company.

Bernie Taupin and Elton John in 1970

Some 50-odd years later, the two men are still writing songs together.

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Elton John – who legally changed his name to Elton Hercules John in 1972 – is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world.  He’s worth an estimated £200 million.  

Sir Elton – he was knighted in 1995 – has been known to spend his money like a drunken sailor.  (He once admitted to spending £30 million in less than two years – or about £1.5 million each month.)

A room in Elton John’s London home

He owns homes in Atlanta, London, Los Angeles, Nice, and Venice.  His main residence, Woodside, was originally built in the 1500s for King Henry VIII’s surgeon.  It has been rebuilt three times, and currently has eight bedrooms, five reception rooms, a billiard room, and a squash court.

Woodside is surrounded by 37 acres of formal gardens.  Those gardens are home to a retired Melbourne, Australia streetcar that John bought during what he described as “one of my drug-induced moments.” 

How much did the streetcar cost?  “Ten thousand to buy it,” he told an interviewer in 2010,” and a million to ship it over.”

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Elton John recorded the Bernie Taupin lyrics quoted above in 1970.

I’m guessing that his attitude toward rich guys’ houses had changed by the time he bought Woodside in 1974.

Click here to listen to “Burn Down the Mission.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: