A couple of months later, following an exchange with my contact on a completely different subject, I would express again my surprise at the persistent absence of any sign of life from Elton John after receiving my book. Very kindly, my contact thus questioned again the people whom she had given my book. Confirmation was made that Elton John had been “delighted” by the book, which had been put away in his archives meanwhile. That is what I was told, at that time.

As it turned out, I never heard about this book from its recipient. And all the years that have elapsed since my dispatch have confirmed to me that I never will.

In 2017, I was puzzled by this silence. It did not correspond to the humanity that I knew of the musician, to his sensibility that I had witnessed, and still less to his education. Of course, I had never expected Elton John to rush onto his phone after receiving my sending (far from it -it's been a while that I don't believe in Santa Claus anymore). But this book’s personal content and unusual shape had made me think that I would perhaps receive a standard neutral "thank you" note from his secretariat, a minima. But even that did not happen.

Then after the first months of 2017 had gone by, this lack of response made me realize that what had been so important to me once had never been felt as such by the person whom my book was addressed to, in any ways and at any time.
I certainly always knew that time's erasing effects added to the inescapable gap that exists between a superstar's concerns and lifestyle and those of an ordinary individual like me, made things to be inevitably perceived and remembered in a different way on each side. And furthermore, we all know that all things must pass, anyway. That was by no means a discovery for me. Yet, I also naively thought that my Seventies work inspired by Elton John, and the circumstances that had produced that work, would help the musician remember that epoch through the memories that my book evoked.