When Elton John heard information of Queen Elizabeth II’s demise within the U.Ok., he didn’t cancel his Thursday present in Canada. As a substitute, the singer devoted a efficiency of “Don’t Let the Solar Go Down on Me” to the royal — and eulogized her earlier than a crowd.
“She was an inspiring presence to be round,” John advised his viewers at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, as reported by Billboard. “She led the nation by means of a few of our best and darkest moments with grace, decency and a real, caring heat. I’m 75. She’s been with me all my life, and I really feel very unhappy that she received’t be with me anymore.
“However I’m glad she’s at peace, and I’m glad she’s at relaxation. And he or she deserves it. She’s labored bloody laborious. I ship my like to her household and her family members, and he or she shall be missed. However her spirit lives on, and we rejoice her life tonight with music.”
John, who’s at present within the midst of his “Farewell Yellow Brick Highway” tour, earlier paid tribute to the queen on Instagram. He wrote he was “deeply saddened to listen to the information” and that the queen “has been an enormous a part of my life from childhood to this present day, and I’ll miss her dearly.”
This wasn’t the primary time that John devoted a musical efficiency to a member of the British royal household. He carried out a model of “Candle within the Wind” on the 1997 funeral of Princess Diana, an expensive good friend.
The “Rocket Man” singer additionally famously chronicled witnessing Elizabeth slap Viscount Linley, her nephew.
Within the 2019 memoir “Me,” John recalled watching “her strategy Viscount Linley and ask him to look in on his sister, who’d been taken in poor health and had retired to her room.”
“When he repeatedly tried to fob her off, the Queen flippantly slapped him throughout the face, saying ‘Don’t’ — SLAP — ‘argue’ — SLAP — ‘with’ — SLAP — ‘me’ — SLAP — ‘I’ — SLAP — ‘am’ — SLAP — ‘THE QUEEN!’” the singer recounted.
John grew to become the primary overtly homosexual musician to be knighted by Elizabeth when he obtained the respect in 1998 for his philanthropic and inventive work. He has met with a number of members of the royal household over time.
Elizabeth died Thursday at her Scottish residence of Balmoral Citadel. She was 96.
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