An ex-housesitter spills the beans on the “nerve-wracking” experience of lodging at Elton John’s house

(Image credit: TV Times via Getty Images)

There can’t be many better gaffs to house-sit at than Elton John’s pad. Over his sparkling, illustrious career, Elton has never been shy about displaying the fact he likes to live in luxury and he’s not averse to letting friends and fellow artists enjoy it too, even letting them stay at his house when he’s away. One such benefactor is Nick Littlemore of powerhouse Aussie dance trio Pnau and electro-pop duo Empire Of The Sun. Speaking to this writer a few years ago, Littlemore said it was a brilliant place to stay but also a high-end experience that put him a little on edge throughout this stay.

“My wife and I lived at his place in London,” Littlemore explained. “It was amazing but it was a little nerve-wracking because it’s full of incredible priceless and fragile antiques. So whilst it’s wonderful to stay there, it’s also incredibly nerve-wracking that you’re going to bump into something in the middle of the night or if you’re hungover in the morning. It was wonderful but a little daunting.”

When asked whose job it was to take the bins out at Elton’s place, Littlemore said there was a whole team of housekeepers to keep the operation running smoothly. “There’s all these secret passages where staff seem to just appear and disappear again,” he explained. “You leave a napkin out and 10 minutes later it’ll mysteriously disappear.”

Littlemore probably didn’t have to pay rent, but he has paid Elton back in other ways. Pnau were enlisted to come up with a remix and reworking from vintage Elton recordings to help position him as a contemporary artist rather than just a heritage act and they came up with the gargantuan 2021 hit Cold Heart (Pnau remix). The song stitched together Rocket Man, Sacrifice, Kiss The Bride and Where’s The Shoorah?, added a new vocal from Dua Lipa and became Elton’s biggest modern track.

“It reminds me of what happened with [Empire Of The Sun’s Walking On A Dream,” said Littlemore of the song’s success. “It just got so big that it really had very little to do with us anymore. The record was having its own life, its own relations and it’s a juggernaut. I love that you can be in a store or in a taxi or an airport and you hear your record and it takes you a moment to recognise it and then you’re like, ‘oh right, I know that record’. I always maintained that when one makes music, it’s not for the person who made it, it’s for the listener, but we’ve never had it to this degree where, you know, over a billion people listen to this Cold Heart record, it’s a crazy thing, it’s hard to fathom, it’s like understanding infinity.”

Success big enough, you imagine, that Elton might have even forgiven him if he’d broken a vase. Watch the video for Cold Heart (Pnau remix) below:

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Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.