1 album in the US, leading the way for six more over the next three-and-a-half years. 2 in the UK and becoming Elton’s first No. Not to be outdone, the May 1972 album from which it was taken, Honky Château, achieved the same distinction, reaching No. 6 in the US – Elton’s highest-charting placements in each country at the time. In June of 1972, the single rose to the No. Fast-forward to the first half of 2019, when Rocket Man, boosted by the aforementioned film, appeared on four different Billboard charts, most notably Rock Streaming Songs (staying on for 55 weeks) and Rock Digital Song Sales (23 weeks on that chart). A week later, it also placed on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. In America, the single entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on May 6, 1972, staying on the chart for 15 weeks, 4 in the Top 10 and 12 in the Top 40. It re-entered the chart in April 2007, becoming the Elton UK single with the longest span of time between two chart appearances at 419 months (35 years). 42 position on April 22, providing it a home for 13 weeks. The UK Singles Chart welcomed the record to the No. On March 31, 1972, the first 50,000 copies of the Rocket Man UK single were issued in a 7” picture sleeve – gatefold and then single-sleeved. I send my best wishes to ESA and all the crew, and my thanks for keeping those boyhood dreams alive.” It is certainly one of the most played songs here on the ISS, and we know it will accompany more astronauts into space in the future.” Elton replied, “it’s amazing to hear from the astronauts at the European Space Agency that they like the song and that it has been on the playlist on the International Space Station. The European Space Agency (ESA) member kept himself company with the 1972 hit during his six-month mission, saying “This song has been an inspiration to many people who are interested in space, and especially those who wanted to become astronauts, including myself. Then, in April 2012, Elton responded to a 227 nautical miles/420 kilometers shout-out from André Kuipers aboard the International Space Station (ISS). A huge thank you to all the men and women at NASA who worked on the shuttle for the last three decades.” Rocket Man has been played to awaken four shuttle crews aboard Discovery and Atlantis and is also one of NASA’s top 40 wakeup call songs listed for voter selection during a contest to commemorate the Space Shuttle Discovery and Endeavour’s last missions. We wish you much success on your mission. In July 2011, NASA posted on their YouTube page: “Flight Day 6 was kick-started for the STS-135 astronauts with a special wake-up message from Elton John … “Good morning Atlantis, this is Elton John. One can only imagine what Elton felt singing Rocket Man that evening after such an experience. Following a simulated Moon landing, they were given a tour of the facility by a real rocket man, Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden. On April 28, 1972, the morning of his concert date at the University of Houston, TX, Elton and his band were invited to visit the NASA Space Center. It was also the first song on which Elton’s band, Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, and Nigel Olsson explored the opportunity to sing backing vocals together, immediately discovering an alchemy that producer Gus Dudgeon called “the best in-house backing vocalists that anybody’s ever had on record.” Rocket Man was the first song Elton wrote during the Honky Château sessions in January 1972 at the Château d’Hérouville studio outside of Paris, France. In this case, words to an entire verse fell out of my mind and onto the page. Usually, I’d come up with a line and build from there. When I arrived, I rushed in without saying hello. I was trying not to lose my train of thought as I raced to my parents’ house. I also couldn’t dictate the words or call someone to take them down. And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then.” But I didn’t have a pad or pen in the car. As I thought about how to start the song, the first verse came to me at once: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight / Zero hour 9 a.m. Driving the back roads, I began writing a song in my head about the drudgery of being an astronaut. It was a literal retelling of the Bradbury story. I also thought about the 1970 song “Rocket Man” that Tom Rapp had written and recorded with his band, Pearls Before Swine. … During my drive, I thought about the Bradbury story. By then, the sun had set and it was pitch black. After exiting the M-1 motorway, I had to take back roads to my parents’ village. I had moved to the States a year earlier and hadn’t been home in a while. In mid-1971, I was in England driving north to visit my parents in Lincolnshire. As Bernie told the Wall Street Journal in 2018… Bernie cites a short story written by science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury as an inspiration for his lyric.
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