He’s almost as famous for his vast collection of flamboyant glasses as he is for his music but, sadly, Sir Elton John can no longer see much out of any of them.
An infection last year left the 78-year-old superstar blind in one eye and with very limited vision in the other. It sadly means that he can no longer watch his two sons, Zachary, 14, and Elijah, 12, playing football and rugby.
‘You get emotional, but you have to get used to it because I’m lucky to have the life I have,’ he told The Times. ‘So you say to yourself, just get on with it.’
So he is. His outrageous specs, of which he estimates he owns between 10,000 and 15,000 pairs, are in storage because, surprisingly, he and his spouse, David Furnish, 62, don’t have a house big enough to store them.
Despite officially retiring from touring in 2003, after five decades in the music industry, he was performing at the London Palladium last month, appearing alongside American singer songwriter and close friend Brandi Carlile. The two have just produced a new album, Who Believes in Angels?
With 40 albums under his belt, Elton – famous for songs such as Daniel, Your Song and his own least favourite, Crocodile Rock – has nothing to prove.
Exhausted, he admitted, ‘I thought, I don’t want to do the album. But there were other people involved and I couldn’t abandon it. When we got started, I wanted to challenge myself, the age that I am. Once it got rolling it was like an express train. It was just roaring.'
‘It is hard making music sometimes and then you get to a place where you want to be. I was frustrated at the beginning as I did not think I was doing enough to justify the lyrics I’d been given, but it all came together. I knew what I wanted the album to be like, but getting there is a different thing. I was getting wound up and I wasn’t feeling very well.'
‘I stepped up to the mark and the lyrics were always great. I didn’t want it to sound like previous Elton John records. This has the energy of something I did in the Seventies. I don’t have any regrets. We went in with nothing and came out with an album.’
Speaking during his performance at the Palladium, he took a trip down memory lane to the Seventies when he did a Royal Variety Performance there with Liberace.
‘It was very funny,’ he said. ‘We shared a dressing room and I had a lurex suit. He came in with trunk after trunk and with his electric lightbulb suit which lit up. I thought You’ve won: game set and match!’ He also revealed that he never plays the song Daniel live any more for fear of losing his audience.
‘Daniel is a lovely solo record, but it is slow. It’s a bit cabaret in a way. You can’t change the way you do Daniel. I’ve found out during the years that when I play it some people go out and have a pee!’
Politically, Elton, who is a highly prominent philanthropist and charity donor, has strong views but is cautious about what he says. ‘I’m a diplomat. If I speak out about governments then what’s going to happen to the AIDS money? What’s going to happen to the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)? I’ve got people’s lives at stake.
‘I have the AIDS Foundation and it depends on money. You have to negotiate and play the game and, to be fair, all the governments since Bush, and including Donald Trump, have kept PEPFAR going. It looks a little shaky now but I am going to go there and fight for it.’
Never forgetting to count his own blessings, Elton added, ‘The greatest gift I ever had was my first son. Apart from David, Zachary, was my greatest gift ever.’ In addition to Zachary, he now has second son, Elijah.
‘When we decided to have kids we were like, “What is our life purpose? We have the AIDS Foundation. We’re gay men going around the world for what? What do we leave the world?” David said, “Let’s have children.” We had two children and they are the greatest gifts I have ever had. It has changed my life; it’s changed David’s life too. It has given us – me – a new perspective on what life should be. They are the greatest gifts and they teach you something every day.’
Irrespective of all his musical success, he wants a very simple epitaph to be etched on his tombstone. ‘I just want it to say “He was a great dad”.’