As a self-proclaimed memoir junkie, I’ve certainly read my fair share, and Elton John’s autobiography ME is about as compelling as they come. Packed with witty and self-deprecating humour, Elton looks back on his early years and career with humility and grace, but never with regret. Unlike the highly romanticized spectacle that is Rocketman, the biopic that came out mere months before this memoir, ME is raw, deep and incredibly emotional – so much so that John couldn’t even record the audiobook himself and had to call on Rocketman star Taron Egerton to do so instead. It’s not hard to see why. I’ve never met Elton, nor did I grow up listening to his music, but even I found some of the chapters hard to get through. Most notably, the letter he wrote to cocaine when he checked into the Lutheran Hospital for substance abuse in 1990. Elton’s writing is so intimate that it feels wrong to be reading this at times, like somehow, we gained access to his private diary.

As deeply emotional and personal the memoir may be, it is just as much a love letter toElton’s companions as well as the rock-and-roll era as a whole. From Princess Diana to Freddie Mercury, Elton looks back on so many of the people he knew and loved in his life through touching stories and heartwarming moments. Just when it feels like the memoir is getting too depressing, Elton pulls out a story of mailing a phallic cuckoo-clock to John Lennon, or of Katherine Hepburn breaking into his backyard to use his pool. The singer also writes about his relationship with Ryan White, a teenager in Indiana who contracted AIDS that he would visit constantly. Elton writes about staying in the hospital with Ryan’s mother all night while she watched her son die of the disease, and recounts how the story humbled and inspired him to start the Elton John AIDS Foundation. His love for all of his friends bleeds through the pages in every story he writes.

Elton’s commitment to portraying the full truth about his life, good or bad, is the most extraordinary feature of ME . He refuses to shy away from the embarrassing moments brought on by his temper and drug addiction. He shares absolutely everything, from the reasoning behind his two suicide attempts, to his uncontrollable ego leading him to act irrationally, for example, by yelling at a hotel staff for their inability to control the wind outside his balcony.
Elton says it best himself while discussing his documentary Tantrums and Tiaras which he produced with the goal of portraying a more accurate account of the life of rock stars. “I hate whitewashed documentaries,” he writes. “about rock stars where everyone’s telling you what a wonderful person they were. Most rock stars can be horrible sometimes. They can be fabulous and charming and they can be outrageous and stupid.” In ME, we get to experience an Elton John that is as outrageous and stupid as he is fabulous and charming. If anything, it just makes him all the more extraordinary.