Walking down St. Mark’s Place recently, a car drove past blasting Elton John’s 1974 single “Bennie and the Jets.” Stopping at the red light, the middle-aged driver sang loudly and pretended that the steering wheel was a piano as I wondered if my used-to-be-favorite singer was dead. Back in April, it was reported that Elton was canceling tour dates because of a “harmful and unusual bacterial infection” he’d caught in South America. With so many of my musical idols—Cynthia Robinson, David Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Maurice White—dying in the last few years, it was possible that seventy-year-old Sir Elton would be the next star strutting through the pearly gates of Pop Star Heaven.

“Not another one,” I sighed, reaching into my jeans pocket to retrieve my phone.

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