My shipment never sparked any reaction. Not having been solicited by anyone to produce this artwork,
I deduced that it had simply not met the decision makers’ favors, and had not been judged to be worthy of being a potential candidate
for Elton John's new album’s sleeve : originally, the musician and his lyricist had probably something else in mind for a visual
immortalization of their new musical creation. Having measured the risks from the start, and therefore having acted in full knowledge
of the situation, I decided to forget the episode by moving on to other projects ; I produced in the wake in 1975 and 1976 a whole
new set of research dedicated to Elton John’s music and persona. In the years that followed, whenever I had the
opportunity to see again John Reid or Elton John, at no point did I ever mention this work again. This partly because out of shyness,
a lot because of fear of learning that Elton John had not liked this painting. But above all because I had understood that when this kind
of people found an interest in something, they surely knew how to show it. Therefore it seemed to me as useless as
it was counterproductive to embarrass them with questions to which in my opinion their silence had already provided an answer.

I had created a painting suitable for a gatefold sleeve, a very popular design trend in those blissful and glorious days of the
vinyl album's heyday. The front cover showed Elton John, and the back one Bernie Taupin, both brought together when the gatefold cover
was unfolded. The visual was framed by a black border, in order to highlight the volumes, lights and colors of the painting. I had
portrayed Elton John (the "Captain" from the album’s title) as a fancy ship's captain, crossing the sky like the brightest of all stars (a symbol
of Elton John's success, and a nod to Lucy In The Sky With Diamond, the Beatles song that the singer had covered then). The
"Captain" flew over an audience of Hollywood stars filled with admiration: Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Barbra Streisand, Marlene Dietrich, singers like Ringo Starr and Rod Stewart. John Reid figured as well among this constellation of stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bernie Taupin was represented floating in the sky among suspended water pearls (a metaphor of the sea which bathes Lincolnshire's
shores and its maritime city of Grimsby -which the Caribou album paid tribute to), typewriting his lyrics with one hand, seated on
a big magic ball floating above this audience of stars, his inspiration symbolically unwinding on an endless river-like sheet of paper that
flowed and finally turned into a meteoric light wake out of one of Elton John’s "Platform Shoes". Bernie Taupin’s left hand's finger
interfered with the wake of the singer’s other flying shoe, symbol of the creative symbiosis between Taupin and Elton John.