50 Years of 'Rocket Man': Inside the Song That's Sustained Elton John's Stardom for a 'Long, Long Time'

In the five decades since Elton John released "Rocket Man (I Think It's Gonna Be a Long, Long Time)" on April 17, 1972, the sweeping ballad has become a go-to pop culture shorthand — not only for John himself, but also for pundits, innovators and even a U.S. President.

"Rocket Man" was the follow-up single to John's breakout ballad "Your Song" and quickly became a top-10, triple-platinum hit. It gave the singer his nickname and eventually inspired the title of his Oscar-winning 2019 musical biopic.

Lyricist Bernie Taupin has said over the years that the iconic first words of the song came to him as he was driving on an English motorway toward his parents' house. Because he didn't have hands free to take note of the lyrics, he had to spend the remainder of the two-hour drive repeating the words to himself: "She packed my bags last night pre-flight, zero hour 9 a.m. And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then…."

Clearly, some things are worth remembering. Below, we celebrate of the song's anniversary with a few more highlights from its history, including some unexpected, starry connections.

Elton John apparently didn't know the actual inspiration for the song for 44 years

Taupin confirmed in a 2016 video posted to John's official YouTube that he was inspired by science fiction author Ray Bradbury's short story "The Rocket Man" from his collection The Illustrated Man. Taupin explained that the story centered on "how astronauts in the future would become sort of an everyday job. So I kind of took that idea and ran with that."

"Do you know," replied John, "I never knew that?"

The Bowie Connection

Taupin also dismissed the notion that he was heavily influenced by David Bowie's "Space Oddity." That said, the songs do have at least one thing in common: Gus Dudgeon produced them both. (Taupin also admitted that "Rocket Man" borrowed from Pearls Before Swine's same-named 1970 track. "It's common knowledge that songwriters are great thieves, and this is a perfect example," he said, per American Songwriter.)

Though Bowie was reportedly miffed that "Rocket Man" performed better on the charts than "Space Oddity" (prompting his wife Angie to tell him, "It's OK, David, other people can sing about space travel, too," according to 2000's Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie), the hard feelings had abated by the time of Bowie's death in 2016.

Three days after The Starman's passing, John performed a mashup of "Space Oddity" and "Rocket Man" at a concert in Los Angeles, telling the crowd that Bowie "was innovative, he was boundary-changing and he danced to his own tune — which in any artist is really rare," according to The Independent.

"Rocket Man" has become something of a good luck charm

Case in point: Nathan Chen's gold medal-winning 2022 Beijing figuring skating long program, which mashed up the song with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and the 2018 remix of "Bennie and the Jets" featuring a rap by Logic.

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And it certainly didn't hurt that Dua Lipa dropped a few bars from "Rocket Man" into the chorus of "Cold Heart," her duet with John that reworked his 1989 song "Sacrifice." It topped the Billboard Top 40 and went platinum around the globe.

"Rocket Man" has a birthday twin

Happy birthday, Jennifer Garner! The 13 Going on 30 star was born on the exact day that the tune was released, which means they turned 50 — and fabulous! — together.

If you cannot conceive of a reggae-inflected version of "Rocket Man," even in your wildest imagination ... you don't have to!

John and Taupin tapped Kate Bush to perform a cover of the tune for their 1991 Two Rooms. The "Don't Give Up" singer, a long-time fan of John, was thrilled.

"From the age of 11, Elton John was my biggest hero," she wrote in her note on the back of the "Rocket Man"/"Candle in the Wind" single. "When I asked to be involved in this project and was given the choice of a track it was like being asked 'would you like to fulfill a dream? would you like to be Rocket Man?'... yes, I would."

Suffice it to say, the musical direction she chose to go in was unexpected, but that didn't mean it suffered in sales — it went to No. 12 on the U.K. charts and No. 2 in Australia.

Space Ventura?

Perhaps the only version stranger than Bush's take was Jim Carrey's 1998 cameo at John's concert in Anaheim, California.

The song even factored into a tense moment for international diplomacy — as a tool of psychological warfare

Former President Donald Trump has a well-documented penchant for bombastic rock, disco anthems and Broadway belters, but his mind for musical references reached a new echelon when he called North Korean's Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man" during an address to the United Nations (he eventually switched it up to "Little Rocket Man" on many occasions after). A year later, Trump reportedly sent his frenemy a personally signed copy of the song as a would-be coup de grâce during high-stakes diplomatic negotiations.

Alas, the jab didn't land. An insider told South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo in 2018 that "Trump asked Kim if he knew the song and Kim said no."

"Rocket Man" may have actually found its way to the final frontier.

With respect to Kate Bush, William Shatner's spoken word rendition is the undisputed champ of "Rocket Man" covers. The Star Trek actor debuted his version while hosting the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. Taupin even offered his stamp of approval by introducing the performance, and the show appropriately ended with Bradbury presenting the best film award.

Years later, Shatner would live out his space dreams at age 90 by actually blasting into orbit — and becoming the oldest person ever to do so — as part of a 2021 mission with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin New Shepard vehicle.

"We're just at the beginning [of a new phase of space travel], but how miraculous that beginning is — how extraordinary it is to be part of that beginning," said the man most famous for portraying space explorer extraordinaire Captain James T. Kirk.

And though it hasn't been confirmed, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine Shatner might have had a certain tune in his mind while he was soaring through the sky, "high as a kite ... on such a timeless flight."