Legendary star Elton John revealed he has written a song for his own funeral, saying: "I like very sad music". Although he has had numerous well publicised health issues over the year this track isn't a recent development and actually features on his 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Describing the creation of the track on Classic Rock Stories he recalled his producer Gus Dudgeon had encouraged him to do an instrumental. "One day, I was feeling down, and I said to myself, 'What kind of music would I like to hear at my own funeral?' I’d always liked funeral music anyway. I like very sad music of any kind!" he admitted.
In 2014 Elton reflected on the album admitting on American TV it made him emotional. "I’m not someone who normally looks back; I’m not someone who gets nostalgic but I had to listen to this album because I had to do interviews about it. It made me very emotional. I cried a little at it because it reminded me of a time when I was very innocent. I hadn’t done a drug," the star, who has been sober for two decades, said. More recently, Elton admitted he cried for a solid 45 minutes while recording a song that made him aware of his own mortality.
The 78-year-old legend was working on a new track titled When This Old World Is Done With Me, and confessed that the lyrics penned by his long time collaborator Bernie Taupin resonated deeply with him, prompting thoughts about his own mortality. The song featured on his 2025 album Who Believes In Angels? which he recorded with Brandi Carlile.
He came close to tears making the emotional admission during an appearance on BBC's The Graham Norton Show in April last year. "Bernie Taupin [Elton's lyricist] gave me a lyric for a song called, 'When This Whole World Is Done With Me', and I'm writing the verse [music] quite quickly, and I think this is a really lovely verse.
"And then I get to the chorus, and I find that it's about my death, my demise. And as a 76 year old man, which I was at that time, and having children and having a husband, mortality, and you think about,'How long have I got? How long? I hope I've got much longer than maybe I've got [left].'
"And so by the time I got to the chorus and suddenly realised that I started singing it [and] I lost it for 45 minutes. It was a very, very heavy moment for me," he confessed.
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He continued: "After 45 minutes of being consoled, I was okay, but I recorded the next day... when you're singing about being washed out to sea and the end of your life, it took me by surprise.
"It's a really lovely song. I did it all in one take the next day. I just came in and did its vocal and piano at the same time.
"And I put a brass band at the end of it, because I've always loved brass bands, colliery bands, because they their music is rather sad - the sound of it.
"I always loved the Cup Final when they played 'Abide With Me' and I always used to cry no matter how old I was, because it was so beautiful."
