And you can tell everybody
This is your song
It may be quite simple, but now that it’s done
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind
That I put down in the words
How wonderful life is while you’re in the world …
- Songwriters: Elton John / Bernie Taupin-Performed by: Elton John
I SUPPOSE it is inevitable that we talk about one of Elton John’s songs after watching his biopic Rocketman. Although I have also written about some of his songs in previous columns, this one seems perfect as this is the song that made him into what he is.
For the uninitiated, Sir Elton Hercules John, CH CBE, is an English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer. Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin, since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
There’s this scene in Rocketman, between piano player Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin:
Taupin sits at Elton’s mother’s breakfast table, scribbling lyrics onto a sheet of paper. He hands it over to Elton (“It’s got tea on it,” John comments) and heads upstairs to take a shower. As Bernie Taupin was about to shave, he hears melodies from the piano. Elton has already done the melody and finished the song.
The song, of course, is Elton John’s eventual smash hit Your Song from his self-titled second studio album (1970). It was recorded at Trident Studios in London in January 1970 and released in the United States in October 1970
According to Taupin, “I scribbled the lyric down on a lined notepad at the kitchen table of Elton’s mother’s apartment in the London suburb of Northwood Hills, breakfast time sometime in 1969. That’s it, plain and simple.”
Elton John hadn’t come out of the closet yet, but Bernie Taupin knew, which is why the lyrics avoid using gendered pronouns.
From www.faroutmagazine.co.uk:
In 1967, teenage musicians Elton John and Bernie Taupin met for the first time after a record company gave John some of Taupin’s lyrics to work with. Eventually, they both moved into John’s parents’ house, where they started working together in earnest. One of the first songs that came out of this contrived but remarkable partnership would turn out to be one of John’s biggest hits (Your Song)…
Looking back at it now, despite their longstanding relationship and immense history, John claims that Taupin still refuses to reveal the identity of the person who inspired this song. John told Rolling Stone, “I always thought ‘Your Song’ was written about one of his girlfriends, and when I asked him that, he just said, ‘No it wasn’t!’ He gets fairly defensive.”
In a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, John Lennon said:
“I remember hearing Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, heard it in America — it was one of Elton’s first big hits — and remember thinking, ‘Great, that’s the first new thing that’s happened since we (The Beatles) happened.’ It was a step forward. There was something about his vocal that was an improvement on all of the English vocals until then. I was pleased with it.”
And finally in a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Elton John has this to say:
“What can I say, it’s a perfect song. It gets better every time I sing it. I remember writing it at my parents’ apartment in North London, and Bernie giving me the lyrics, sitting down at the piano and looking at it and going, ‘Oh, my God, this is such a great lyric, I can’t fuck this one up.’ It came out in about 20 minutes, and when I was done, I called him in and we both knew. I was 22, and he was 19, and it gave us so much confidence. But musically, this was a big step forward. And the older I get, the more I sing these lyrics, and the more they resonate with me.”/PN
