Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)

Album

Honky Château

Label

Uni Records

Genre

Psychedelic Pop

Composer(s)

Elton John;Bernie Taupin

Entered Chart

May 6, 1972

Peak Date

Jul 15, 1972

Released

17 April 1972

Recorded

16 January 1972 Studio Château d'Hérouville (Hérouville, France) mixed at Trident Studios (London,

Catalog #

Uni 55328

B-Side

Suzie (Dramas)

Space exploration was big in 1972; the song came out around the time of the Apollo 16 mission, which sent men to the moon for the fifth time. The inspiration for Bernie Taupin's lyrics, however, was the short story The Rocket Man, written by Ray Bradbury. The sci-fi author's tale is told from the perspective of a child, whose astronaut father has mixed feelings at leaving his family in order to do his job. It was published as part of the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951. Bradbury's story was the basis for another song called "Rocket Man," which was released by the folk group Pearls Before Swine (fronted by Tom Rapp) in 1970. Taupin says that song gave him the idea for his own "Rocket Man" ("It's common knowledge that songwriters are great thieves, and this is a perfect example," he said). In the Pearls Before Swine song, a child can no longer look at the stars after his astronaut father perishes in space. This was produced by Gus Dudgeon, who worked with David Bowie on his 1969 song "Space Oddity." Both songs have similar subject matter, and lots of people accused Elton of ripping off Bowie, something both Elton and Bernie Taupin deny. The opening lyrics came to Bernie Taupin while he was driving near his parents' house in Lincolnshire, England. Taupin has said that he has to write his ideas down as soon as they show up in his head, or they could disappear, so he drove though some back roads as fast as he could to get to the house where he could write down his thought: "She packed my bags last night, pre-flight. Zero hour, 9 a.m., and I'm gonna be high as a kite by then." From there he came up with the song about a man who is sent to live in space as part of a scientific experiment. The song can be interpreted as a symbol of how rock stars are isolated from their friends, family and from the real world by those with power in the music industry. Some lyric analysis as part of the rock star isolation theory: "I'm burning out his fuse up here alone" - Rocketing through space on stage. "Higher than a kite" - Feeling outside the box called normal. "Mars" - "The place he is when he's high; don't need to be raising children when you're an addict. It's a "cold" place, being an addict and larger than life when you want to be "Normal" and a "Rocketman" at the same time. The most commonly misheard lyric in this song is "Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here alone." This was the centerpiece of a 2011 commercial for the Volkswagen Passat, where folks came up with all kinds of interpretations of the last few words: telephone, cheap cologne, motor home, provolone. A couple in a Passat can correctly interpret the words thanks to the car's premium sound system, and all is well. This wasn't the first time the song was used in a commercial; it was also featured in ads for AT&T. Report this ad "Rocket Man" became a nickname for Elton John. As song-based nicknames go, it's a good one, and Elton embraced it (Madonna hates the "Material Girl" moniker). In 1973, he started a record company called Rocket Records, which was the label that released Neil Sedaka's comeback songs. In 2019, a biopic (billed as a "musical fantasy") called Rocketman was released starring Taron Egerton as Elton John. Around the 2:20 mark, some synthesizer comes into the mix, accentuating the space motif. Elton didn't dabble in synths, so a studio engineer named Dave Hentschel played it. Hentschel operated an ARP 2500 synthesizer at Trident Studios in London, where producer Gus Dudgeon did overdubs and mixing for the album. When Dudgeon found out they had the synth, which was introduced in 1971, he had Hentschel play it and ended up using it in the final mix. Hentschel got the call again on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album when Dudgeon had him create the opening section to "Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding" on the ARP. In the 1977 movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, an ARP 2500 plays the notes that summon the aliens. When Elton played the Soviet Union in 1979, this was listed on the program as "Cosmonaut." This was Elton's biggest hit to that point, outcharting his first Top 10 entry, "Your Song." It had a huge impact on his psyche, as it gave him the confidence to know that he could sustain his career in music. Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens' nickname was "The Rocket," which led to lots of highlight videos of him pitching in slow motion with this song playing in the background. He earned the nickname because of his outstanding fastball, but later came under scrutiny when the league learned that his rocket fuel may have been steroids. Clemens denied the allegations and was never convicted of steroid use. Kate Bush covered this in 1991 for an Elton John tribute album called Two Rooms (a reference to John and Taupin writing separately). Her version hit #12 in the UK. Bush told NME that this is one of her favourite songs of all time. "I remember buying this when it came out as a single by Elton John," she said. "I couldn't stop playing it – I loved it so much. Most artists in the mid seventies played guitar but Elton played piano and I dreamed of being able to play like him." When years Elton and Bernie Taupin asked Bush to record one of their songs for Two Rooms, she chose "Rocket Man." They gave her complete creative control which was both exciting and a bit daunting for the singer. "I wanted to make it different from the original and thought it could be fun to turn it into a reggae version," she said. "It meant a great deal to me that they chose it to be the first single release from the album." William Shatner performed a spoken-word version of this song at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, for which he was the host. Bernie Taupin did the introduction. >> At a show in Anaheim, California on August 22, 1998, Jim Carrey joined Elton for a duet of this song. Carey gave a real performance before sitting at the piano and bashing his head into the keys. >> On an episode of the television show Family Guy, Stewie does a spoken version of this song. >> This was used in a 2017 commercial for Samsung's Gear VR where an ostrich learns to fly after using the flight simulator on the device. Speaking at the United Nations on September 19, 2017, American president Donald Trump excoriated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, referring to him as "Rocket Man" because of his missile program. "Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself," Trump declared. This song immediately began trending. This wasn't the first time the phrase was used in this context: The Economist put Kim Jong Un's father, Kim Jong Il, on the cover of their July 8, 2006 issue with the headline "Rocket Man." Trump is a fan of the song, and often played it at his campaign rallies. However, Bernie Taupin disapproved of the president's usage of the title. "The context bothered me," he told the Wall Street Journal. "The thought that World War III could start over the use of my song title was disturbing. I also was uncomfortable that something of mine that was culturally iconic could be used in such a way." "But what could I do? Sue him for cultural appropriation?" Taupin continued. "As a songwriter, you're powerless to stop something like that. However, if the use of 'Rocket Man' results in peace, I will be very happy to take full credit for it." American country group Little Big Town covered the song for the 2018 Elton John tribute album Restoration. Their version features sounds from NASA's Mission Juno. The Juno project explored the planet Jupiter unlocking some of the secrets of the planet and the sounds from Juno's Waves radio instrument were weaved throughout Little Big Town's harmonies. "One of the main reasons why we chose 'Rocket Man' was because we were so intrigued by not just, of course, Elton John, but by using the sounds from the Juno project so we had all these Jupiter noises," said Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild. With the song title rendered as one word, Rocketman, is the name of the 2019 jukebox musical about Elton John, with Taron Egerton in the starring role. Egerton sings most of the songs in the film, including "Rocket Man." His version got a huge audience with the American figure skater Nathan Chen used it in his gold-medal winning routine at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Elton John and Dua Lipa's 2021 collaborative song "Cold Heart" finds Lipa performing lyrics from "Rocket Man" for its chorus. The club-ready single, featuring production from Australian dance music trio PNAU, gave Elton his first UK #1 in 16 years.

She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour, nine AM
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then

I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife
It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time