"But actually, my drug addiction thing, I was so stubborn"
About this Quote
There is something bracingly unglamorous about the way Elton John frames one of the most mythologized arcs in pop history: not as a tragedy with a soundtrack, but as a personality flaw with consequences. “But actually” functions like a handbrake on the usual narrative. It interrupts the tidy, tabloid-ready storyline of excess and redemption and replaces it with a more embarrassing truth: addiction wasn’t just something that happened to him, it was something he participated in with a kind of willful pride.
The phrase “my drug addiction thing” is doing quiet work. Calling it a “thing” shrinks what the culture inflates. It’s a refusal of grandiose language, a way of demoting the spectacle back into the realm of messy, daily behavior. That casualness also reads as self-protection: if you can name it lightly, you can approach it without being swallowed by shame. Then he lands on “I was so stubborn,” a word that reassigns agency. Stubbornness is familiar, almost domestic; it’s the trait of someone who won’t ask for directions. In this context, it becomes the engine of self-destruction: the insistence on control, the resistance to help, the belief that talent and money can outmuscle chemistry.
Coming from a musician whose brand once thrived on maximalism, the point isn’t confession for confession’s sake. It’s recalibration. He’s not selling the romance of ruin; he’s stripping it of aesthetic value. The subtext is a warning to anyone tempted to treat addiction as an artist’s accessory: the real villain isn’t the party, it’s the ego that keeps the door locked from the inside.
The phrase “my drug addiction thing” is doing quiet work. Calling it a “thing” shrinks what the culture inflates. It’s a refusal of grandiose language, a way of demoting the spectacle back into the realm of messy, daily behavior. That casualness also reads as self-protection: if you can name it lightly, you can approach it without being swallowed by shame. Then he lands on “I was so stubborn,” a word that reassigns agency. Stubbornness is familiar, almost domestic; it’s the trait of someone who won’t ask for directions. In this context, it becomes the engine of self-destruction: the insistence on control, the resistance to help, the belief that talent and money can outmuscle chemistry.
Coming from a musician whose brand once thrived on maximalism, the point isn’t confession for confession’s sake. It’s recalibration. He’s not selling the romance of ruin; he’s stripping it of aesthetic value. The subtext is a warning to anyone tempted to treat addiction as an artist’s accessory: the real villain isn’t the party, it’s the ego that keeps the door locked from the inside.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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