Elton John: Someone Saved My Life Tonight Meaning

Song Released: 1975

Someone Saved My Life Tonight Lyrics

When I think of those east end lights, muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima donna lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And its one more beer and I dont...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   UndiscoveredGenius

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   Jan 14th 2012 !⃝

   This song speaks to me like very few others on a personal level, so I may be partial and overreaching. But I feel this song is one of the most underrated I've ever heard. So many emotions packed into a few minutes of music - exhaustion, desperation, fear, confusion, defeat, fortitude, relief, overwhelming gratitude, joy. It gives me chills every time I listen; quintissential Elton John.
   
   Being torn between living life for others or living the life you know you have inside you is a shared struggle that defies time and trends. This song addresses a need that is so basic, yet causes immeasurable pain and turmoil for so many. The fact that he captured such a fundamentally human dilemma so beautifully further cements him in my mind as one of the greatest pop musicians of our time.
   
   To think how different thousands of lives could have been without one man's courage to pursue his dreams and share his true talents and self sheds light on the fact that every life has the potential to influence another. Once we figure out our calling and our gifts, our life is wasted unless they are used to the fullest.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   kokeen

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   May 6th 2008 !⃝

   Written by Bernie Taupin...
   
   Elton is singing autobiographically. Linda Woodrow was his bride-to-be. The couple met on Christmas Eve, 1967, at a cabaret club in Sheffield, when Elton was in Long John Baldry's backuping band. They found a basement in Islington, North London, where lyricist Bernie Taupin became their flatmate.
   
   Elton has explained: “I was going to get married once when I was younger, and I went out and got drunk with Long John Baldry and Bernie and John said I shouldn't get married. I knew he was right, but I didn't know how to get out of it, so I just got drunk and went home and said I'm not getting married”.
   Bernie said: “One day I was coming out of my room and walking down the hall I smelled gas. I thought "oh, great, somebody's left the oven on in the kitchen." I walked in the kitchen and there's Elton lying on the floor with the gas oven open. My immediate thing should have been oh, my God, he's tried to kill himself! But I started laughing because he'd gotten the gas oven open, he was lying on a pillow and he'd opened all the windows”.
   
   Bernie has stated that “Someone saved my life tonight” was about the suicide attempt and the marriage that never was. While John Baldry is the “sugar bear” of the song, Linda was the “princess perched in her electric chair” and Elton's stepfather “Derf” and mother who “They're coming in the morning with a truck to take me home” (he and Bernie).
3. anonymous

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   Dec 1st 2021 !⃝

   for me, this could be anyone who can't see the beauty in themselves clearly.
   
   Someone who is pinning their hopes on someone to save them (thru marriage) and their closest friend ends up saving them from going thru with the wedding in the nick of time - telling them the truth. Tells them they're about to be trapped and a pawn in someone elses sick social game.
4. anonymous

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   Jul 2nd 2019 !⃝

   This song was written because the person Reggie was to marry in 2 weeks wanted him to quit his music when they were married. This was early in Elton Johns career. He met a friend at a bar that evening and the friend told him not to marry this person, due to Reggie secretly struggling with his sexuality. His friend knew because he was also gay. It was not Bernie who Elton met that night. This lady was very hurt by this song.
5. Fiendishgames

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   Oct 28th 2017 !⃝

   HP stands for "hire purchase", also known as buying on 'tick' or, in corporate circles, rent-to-buy.
   
   I once went into a pet shop to buy a canary and noticed the birds on the top shelf cost more than the ones on the bottom shelf.
   
   I asked why and the shopkeeper pointed to the more expensive ones and explained: those are on higher perches*.
   
   I'll get m'coat ...
   
   
   * Hire purchase. Geddit? Please yourselves ...
6. anonymous

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   Oct 9th 2013 !⃝

   I am curious about the wiccan references...if they are in fact that. H.p. is an abbreviatiin for high priest or priestess. Also "alter-bound" could refer to the witches alter...any thoughts or if I'm wrong what does h.p. stand for?
7. rlquall

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   May 18th 2013 !⃝

   What no one has brought up yet is that Bernie not only may have literally saved his life, he also did so figuratively. Bernie knew that Elton was gay back when he was't out and knew that he could never truly be happily married to any woman, particularly the one in question who was both quite overweight ("sugar bear") and a golddigger ("hold on to your stocks and bonds"). If they had really gotten married, Elton would have been wiped out financially and emotionally, and apparently Bernie feared perhaps even creatively.
8. anonymous

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   Apr 17th 2011 !⃝

   Elton John was engaged to marry and I think Bernie Taupin talked him out of it. Supposedly the woman was a gold digger.
9. anonymous

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   Oct 16th 2007 !⃝

   Elton was engaged to a woman and was giving up music, getting married and taking a "normal" job. He didn't want to do that though, and one night he got really drunk and was talked out of it. He went home and told the woman he was not going to marry her.
   
   Bernie Taupin says he woke up one night and smelled gas and went out to the kitchen where he found Elton trying to kill himself. Of course, Elton had his head on a pillow in the oven and had opened all the windows, so he never really was in danger of anything more than a headache.
   
   The song is about both the figurative saving of his life (being talked out of marriage to stay in music) and the literal saving of his life, which wasn't in any real danger.
10. anonymous

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    Oct 15th 2007 !⃝

    Sir Elton John once tried to commit suicide by putting his head in a gas oven. The 'Rocket Man' singer's main lyricist Bernie Taupin walked in on the suicide attempt. I have been to the Red Piano show in Las Vegas which basically shows Elton's career from beginning (bath houses to the main stage.) During this song the video shows a man sticking his head in an oven trying to kill himself and someone keeping him from it. This song is about how he attempted to commit suicide and was saved. Great song and kudos to Bernie!

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