Elton John’s longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin reflects on their life of music in new memoir
“Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me” (Hachette) that Elton became friends with a youngwoman named Linda Woodrow, and that he somehow came to see it as more than just a friendship.“At a time when he was unsure of his own sexual orientation and how to distribute his pent-up love, it was extraordinary to watch him approach a traditional heterosexual dance,” Taupin writes. “I truly don’t think he knew what hit him and was just swept up in the accepted normality of it all.”But Elton couldn’t hide the truth of his own sexuality from himself for long.“It all changed with an intervention after Elton, in a staged cry for help, opened all the windows, stuck his head in the gas oven, and awaited a dramatic response,” writes Taupin.“Perhaps due to the unorthodox nature of the attempt, gas on low and an embroidered pillow to rest his head on, sympathy was not forthcoming.