Back in 2015, Elton John first revealed himself as a Young Thug fan in an interview with Noisey. A few months later, it was reported that Thug had recorded a song based on Elton's classic "Rocket Man" after receiving some original stems from the singer. At the time, Fader's source described the Thug remix as "really ambient and amazing... It's all the instrumental, the guitar, piano; and Thug is not rapping, he's singing." Later that month, Thug and Elton took some incredible photos together after meeting up in Atlanta, but we never got an update on the "Rocket Man" track. Last week, another Thug project, Slime Language, came and went with no sign of the song, and it seemed, like much of Thug's allegedly gigantic catalogue of stashed music, it may never see the light of day.
Today, the song has surfaced on SoundCloud, as pointed out by Noisey. It features a vocal sample from the song's hook as well as the piano chords, and finds Thug dueting with Elton's hook, before delivering a half-sung, half-rapped verse that hits on some vocal ideas you never thought you'd hear over an Elton instrumental. It's an emotional performance that finds the rapper darting between subjects, mashing personal reflection with outlandish boasts: "She let me back in like she never cried/She let me back in like I never lied/I look like a cat with eleven lives."
Listen to the track below.
Quotable Lyrics:
Got my karats out of Bonnie & Clyde
She let me back in like she never cried
She let me back in like I never lied
I look like a cat with eleven lives
I really kick shit you can't act so fly
I'm steady chasing like I'm never tired
I'm living scary like a hundred highs
Lil mama sexy, I got butterflies, hey