From Lyrics to Life: Bernie Taupin’s ‘Scattershot’ — A Kaleidoscopic Memoir

Sometimes, a memoir can transform your mind into a movie screen and a kaleidoscope. Or take you to a reading rodeo you never expected. Bernie Taupin’s book, Scattershot — Life, Music, Elton and Me, is one of those literary miracles.

I got it the day it was published, on September 12, 2023. I finished reading it almost three months later. It took me a long time to read. But why?

From chicken shit into a companionship

Bernie Taupin was born on May 22, 1950, on a farm in Lincolnshire, UK, as the son of a French father and an English mother.

His parents were well-educated, but the big influencer was his grandfather, a Cambridge-educated classics teacher who instilled into young Bernie a yearning for creative work.

Bernie had dreams, determination but no direction — except knowing where to shovel chicken shit while working on a farm. He wanted something more. And when an advertisement lured him into trying his hand at writing song lyrics, everything changed for two young men: Bernie met Reginald Dwight, now better known as Elton John. And thus, a rock ’n’ roll fairytale came into the limelight. It was 1967.

It’s not bad to find your songmate and soul sister at the tender age of 17!

Bookwormish Bernie and eccentric Elton were a strange pair of trousers. But the world needed to see exactly that kind of creative attire on the global stage. And we all know how that panned out on the catwalks of popular music, where the pair has been releasing an astounding collection of music for almost any taste — bad taste included.

The results of that companionship have exceeded all expectations. Bernie was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992, got an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2020, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — just to name a few of the big ones.

But that’s not all about Bernie. Who knew he had also become an accomplished cowboy, owning his own ranch with horses and competing in rodeos across the USA? After an injury took him off the saddle, he focused on art and has since become a well-recognized artist, showcasing his work in exhibitions and receiving rave reviews. And so much more.

But read yourself the details; they are all in the book, which is much more than a chronicle of his life.

The memoir that makes you live with Bernie and love his views

It is not a surprise that Bernie is a language wizard. His lyrics are so multi-dimensional and layered that I was almost scared to open the Scattershot. And my fears were correct: it is a statue made of quicksand. You open the page, you think you read a sentence, but instead, you are whisked into a whirlwind of sentences where Bernie’s words explode in your mind.

Honestly, I read every sentence several times to suck in all that was there on those lines and in between them. It was a beautiful, fulfilling and orgastic reading experience.

If Shakespeare had most of the known words in his active vocabulary, Bernie Taupin has the rest of them. The richness of his writing is mindblowing.

He has crafted his sentences with the beat of a poet and the kicks of a thoroughbred horse. You ride on them, trying to hold on to the saddle, and simultaneously wonder the scenery while the horse throws you high. This rodeo writing asks for some stamina from the reader. But as a gentle soul, Bernie lands you always on the soft ground and gives you more than you expected: a wise way to see life in its full glory.

Clever shift in hue and tone from screaming neon to calming crayon

Bernie Taupin is a very visual writer. He creates short, accurate and sharp illustrations from the fragments of his life.

The book starts by pushing you through the 70s and 80s palette: it’s bright, bold, sometimes disturbing but always hectic — an almost manic way of living to the fullest and then wanting some more.

Bernie had a long shadow in the bright light of Elton’s fame. In that shadow, he was able to become more than a lyricist. He became a reborn Renaissance into pop culture, making deep cuts into shallow thinking and secondhand emotional platitudes.

Then Bernie starts to use deeper colours, blending them with wisdom and wit and letting the reader come closer. While telling how his life began to become more stable, relationships more serious, and finally finding deep love, Taupin’s language subtly reflects this transformation.

The book ends with language of love for his wife Heather and daughters, spirituality, fulfilment and gratitude. Tears came to my eyes when I read the last sentence: “Still, he is an eternal love and perhaps the reason I got to write this book”. Elton had the last chord in this excellent symphony of words.

Why it took so long to read?

As you already guessed, the book is so dense and filled with goodies that mining them takes time. I didn’t want to miss any nuance or little rhythmic gems Taupin so skillfully crafted.

I became obsessed with his words to the extent that I collected and tabulated his expressions. On my AppleBook reader, I have 696 bookmarks and highlights, with several appearing on almost every page.

The movie screen and kaleidoscope of Scattershot — Life, Music, Elton and Me — stays with you and gives you a fantastic journey with Bernie in the shadow of Elton. But don’t get me wrong, this shadow is not to keep Bernie out of the limelight but to make him shine in his own right more than we knew in the world that we came to know through the pages of this memoir — the best one of its kind.