Did Elton John Suspect McLennon?

Did Elton John suspect McLennon?

I believe it's very likely that Elton guessed that there was SOMETHING between John and Paul.

To start with, I want to quote an excerpt from my Walls and Bridges post: "Let's sum it up: Lennon spent a lot of time with Elton, gay (at the time he was 28, and he realized his sexual orientation at about 23 yo), and a musician connected to the glam rock scene (and glam rock is inherently queer). I guess that Elton knew or at least suspected what John feels towards Paul. And let's remember that at that time Lennon was coming to terms with his bisexuality which he already signaled in 1972. In 1974 John interviewed himself for Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine to promote Walls and Bridges. Here comes the question: "Have you ever fucked a guy?". The response: "Not yet, I thought I’d save it til I was 40, life begins at 40 you know, tho I never noticed it". Further dialogue: "Q. It is trendy to be bisexual and you’re usually 'keeping up with the Jones’, haven’t you ever… there was talk about you and PAUL… A. Oh, I thought it was about me and Brian Epstein… anyway I’m saving all the juice for my own version of THE REAL FAB FOUR BEATLES STORY etc.. etc.."".

Page 2nd of that interview contains a photo of John and Elton:

On November 28, 1974 they were performing together in Madison Square Garden. Announcing "I saw her standing there", John said: "And we thought we do another number of an old enstraged fiancee of mine, called Paul" (Tony King stated that Lennon often referred to McCartney that way).

As we can read in "Christies Auction; Rock & Pop Memorabilia" (July 2008): "Paul Gambaccini [PG] recalled that when he was waiting in the wings that evening, Elton passed him and said cryptically…"The Third Number". PG felt that Elton was probably remarking on the significance that Lennon was performing a Beatles song at this time, especially one written by Paul McCartney. [Lennon only sang a Beatles song in public on three occasions after the split]".

@paulsrighthand analyzed this excerpt perfectly: "I really do feel like he is trying to convey something significant, and the anecdotes and phrasing he chose are purposeful. The very fact that he shares the story of Elton passing him and saying, "cryptically".. the third number, is IMO, no accident. Elton, I'm sure, would have been aware that Paul Gambaccini is gay. Paul G would also know that Elton is gay. I believe that it was probably known that John was going to used the estranged fiancee line (I'll get to that in a second). So, in my theoretical scenario, a gay man is cryptically telling another gay man that his male friend will shortly be dedicating an overtly romantic message to his male friend… to phrase it another way, its just gossip! Like, OMG, you won't believe what John's about to do. It's the simplest explanation, I think?".

What's more, when Elton recalled this event years later, he said that John used the words: "an old FRIEND of mine" but pay attention to his body language. As @paulsrighthand summed up: "If you want to hide your love away , Sir Elton John will be the man to keep your secret, but he will have a little fun whilst doing so imagines a little tee hee thought bubble above his head every time he mentions John and Paul".

And last but not least: a birthday collage to Elton sent by John in 1975!

In a nutshell: John made a tone of queer references here, for example used polari. He also made references to McLennon; one of them is photo of a naked man who reminds Paul. The man is standing backwards so we can't say if that's Paul for sure but even if not, it might have been a sign for Elton. Or maybe John just liked guys of this type?

Even if we assume that Elton did not understand the references to McLennon in this collage (which is unlikely), we know (as seen from the previous points) that he knew John was very interested in queer topics. Elton would have been stupid not to know that John was probably bisexual too; and if so, he probably feels something gay for Paul (I suppose John talked a lot about Paul at the time).

I highly recommend you check out the original post about the birthday collage. There are more quotes there. People were reblogging and commenting on this post, sharing some really interesting reflections.

So... did Elton know what was going on? You may not believe it. But you can also believe in Santa Claus and fairies.