Elton John is a man who knows all about persecution; not only is Elton John gay but he's a middle-aged tubby bald gay with gap teeth, bad eyesight, a ginger wig, a voice like a dying walrus and the world's oddest sense of style – so Elton John knows.
But for now let's just concentrate on the gay thing. Elton John turns 60 this weekend and, instead of marking the occasion by dressing up as a big duck and going to a poncey rah-rah party with a bunch of sycophantic tossers, he's decided to do something useful and speak out against all the anti-gay bigots in the world in an article for the New Statesman. By penning such an important and potentially inflammatory article that'll be felt around the world, Elton John will be drawing attention to a cause that many millions of people feel strongly about. And also drawing attention to the fact that Elton John's back catalogue will be available to download from iTunes for the first time on Monday a bit too. But that's probably just a coincidence.
Elton John has been making music for 36 years now. Admittedly only 12 of those years were spent making music that anybody wanted to hear, but forget about that. Elton John has spent so long in the spotlight that he's earnt the right to speak out against things that stir in his belly. Things like Oasis and photographers and scruffy young bands and Elton John's record label and people who call Elton John rude and Margaret Thatcher and comically mispronounced England managers.
OK, so Elton John pretty much complains about something new every week. But for once, to mark his forthcoming 60th birthday, Elton John has decided to publicly complain about something that doesn't make him sound like the angry nutter who hangs around BHS at the weekends shouting about pencils – bigotry against homosexuals.
Even Elton John – a man so hugely out of touch with the real world that his life is full of smelly candles and chocolate statues – feels the constant threat of persecution against gay people; just last week Tobago tried to ban Elton John from performing there in case the very sight of him prompted all the men on the island to drop trou and start frenziedly bumming each other. In the past Elton John has blamed the persecution of homosexuals on all organised religion, but to reinforce his point, Elton John has penned an article all about standing up to anti-gay bigots for the New Statesman, as BBC News reports:
Sir Elton John has called on people to "shout back" against homophobic abuse, "whether the bigot is in our local pub or a thousand miles away". People were persecuted all over the world "just because of who they love and who they make love to", he said in an article in the New Statesman. "We should all stand up and speak out for… basic human rights," he said… "In some countries, my voice would have been drowned out. Maybe even stamped out. Men and women are persecuted and attacked every day all over the world, just because of who they love and who they make love to."
It's an important issue alright – but we can't help feeling that the New Statesman article is just another way to remind everyone that Elton John's back catalogue is going to be made digitally available for download on iTunes for the very first time from Monday. Elton John has a history of using other mediums to punt his music – he's already commandeering much of ITV's forthcoming airtime to broadcast a concert of him playing most of the old hits to remind people to go out and download them – and now it looks like writing socially-aware articles for magazines is the next logical step.
Still, you have to agree that a one-off article in a magazine we don't read is far more palatable than seeing Elton John's gonk face screaming the word "Mail!" over and over again in adverts for the Post Office every 90 seconds, so for that Elton John should be congratulated.
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johnner says
I’m not homophobic,but I wonder does Elton’s wig fall off when he’s giving David Furnish a furious bumming?