Who Believes In Angels?
***In 2022 Vulture’s music editor, Alex Suskind, asked me to write a complete and allegedly definitive ranked list of every single Elton John song ever recorded—378 at the time. About a month ago I was asked to review and add in the 10 new tracks from his new collaboration with Brandi Carlile, Who Believes In Angels?, and because despite all this practice I’ve always struggled with how to write about Elton as anything other than an album artist, I wrote a version of an intro that Vulture didn’t ask for or need but I’m sharing here anyway.
Elton John’s not fucking dead yet. Got it?
Since this list was originally posted, he has officially retired from touring (for real this time, probably), gone partially blind (he’s recovering) and turned 78 — and also recruited Brandi Carlile to make Who Believes In Angels?, a slamming, defiantly alive album that rates among the best of either artist’s career. As a stand-alone LP measured against John’s absurdly heavyweight catalog, it’s top-tier in large part because it’s less about accepting any end point as it is blowing the doors off the damn barn.
To be fair, along with longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin, John’s had a hell of a head start making music about his own near-death tendencies, from “I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself” to “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” with a side of “I’m Still Standing” and “Funeral For a Friend.” (John, Taupin, Carlile and producer Andrew Watt share writing credit on all 10 tracks.)
Carlile began imagining herself in Elton’s world at an early age. Her scorching cover of “Madman Across the Water” has long been a live concert staple, and their “Simple Things” duet was a highlight of 2021’s The Lockdown Sessions (No. 72 on this list originally; “should in any righteous world be the first blush of a better, fully fledged duet album”). Watching her tenderly organize Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to trace a trajectory to this shared moment.
John has also been a generous collaborator over his five-and-a-half decades as a recording artist, not just for one-offs but most memorably for 2010’s The Union, which resuscitated his longtime hero Leon Russell’s career, allowing a late-life push back into touring until his 2016 death. From how Elton and Brandi have talked about the genesis of this album — he informed her they would be — it was more a throwing of a gauntlet than a hard-luck save.
Who Believes In Angels? is, occasionally, a consideration of the possible end of an era, notably on the fiery closing track, “When This Old World Is Done With Me,” which cracks this all-time top 20. But it’s no quiet retreat. Chart-obsessed and famously blunt, John has openly speculated since early in his career that each album could be the one that’s not a No. 1, that’s not a hit at all, that might be his last. This one really could be. Or it could be a new beginning, and I’ll be back with another update.