Rocketman

It plays in the scene where family members take turns singing a line each, revealing the distance between them.

• The way each family member takes a turn continuing the same song shows that, though they live under one roof, they each carry a different heart.
• The original flows plainly over a slow keyboard accompaniment, but the film expands it into a musical number, distributing each character's emotion in turn.
• The lyrics' earnest longing is at odds with the characters' gestures, as they never actually meet each other's eyes — and that very disjunction explains what is wrong with this family.

It plays in the scene of his first meeting with Bernie Taupin and the budding of their friendship, later becoming the song that symbolizes their relationship.

• The plain piano accompaniment and simple chord progression stand in contrast to the more elaborate numbers later on, signaling that this was the purest time for the two of them.
• It is in fact one of the signature songs Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote together in their early years, a song long beloved outside the film as well.
• The brief return of this melody later in the film can be read as a device pointing to the original feeling left behind all the glamour.

It plays in the scene where, at the peak of the Troubadour performance, reality crosses into fantasy and the audience and performer rise together.

• The song's buoyant rhythm and repeating refrain serve as a force lifting the audience onto the stage, overlapping with the staging in which the characters actually rise into the air.
• The simple, retro rock and roll progression pays homage to the music of the 1950s, giving the impression that the stage's excitement crosses eras.
• This scene is among the most talked-about moments in the film, with music and staging together amplifying the instant a single debut performance completely transforms a person's life.

It is used as the song representing the period when the glittering glam rock costumes and exaggerated persona are completed.

• The heavy, clap-like rhythm and the artificially processed crowd-noise effects render, in sound, the distance between real life and the figure on stage.
• The way the song addresses a fictional band echoes the way the film's protagonist increasingly hides behind a character of his own making.
• The short keyboard riff that repeats within the elaborate arrangement functions almost as a marker pointing to his stage persona during this period.

A scene depicting the inner isolation of a figure growing ever more cut off amid fame, unfolding alongside an underwater fantasy image.

• The astronaut image that gives the film its title signifies an isolation far removed from earth, and the film visualizes this by transforming it into an image of sinking underwater.
• The slowly unfolding synthesizer sound and understated melody contrast with the flashy numbers that came before, signaling the first moment the character stops to look back at himself.
• This song is widely known as one of Elton John's signature works, and since the film's title is drawn from it, it serves as a symbol summarizing the entire story.

It plays at the moment when the desire to escape a glamorous life bursts out, coinciding with the period when the crisis reaches its peak.

• The structure, beginning as a warm ballad and gradually swelling into a powerful chorus, closely follows the character's mind, holding both resignation and resistance at once.
• The image of the yellow brick road carries the wish to leave a predetermined path, and in this scene the character questions, for the first time, the way of life he has been given.
• The original song's arrangement, blending acoustic guitar and piano, is used in the film in a form fairly close to the original, standing out plainly among the other flashy numbers.

It plays at the point where the crisis peaks and shifts into the quietest, slowest voice, capturing the moment just before he asks for help.

• The chorus, rising into a high register, sounds like a desperate plea, and the spare accompaniment, stripped of any flashy arrangement, lays bare the character's collapsed state.
• The title's wish that the sun not go down reads as the desperation to hold on before a relationship ends, and in this scene it expands into a wish to hold on to life itself.
• Since its release, this song has become widely known through cover recordings by many singers, and in the film it is regarded as the moment that most earnestly captures the original's emotion.

It is used as the song that closes the film, capturing the lightness felt after completing recovery.

• The bright major-key rhythm and powerful chorus stand in stark contrast to the heavy mood at the film's opening.
• The repeated resolve in the lyrics sounds like the voice of someone who fell and rose again, and the song is placed as a counterpart to the earlier scenes of crisis.
• This song's music video and stage costumes are also well known as representative of his flamboyant image in the 1980s, making it a point where the film's ending and his actual career overlap.