The classic Elton John song Bernie Taupin modestly described as “perfect”
From afar, Bernie Taupin is one of the most enigmatic men in music. The little lyricist is the John Lennon to Elton John‘s Paul McCartney, so to speak, but despite his huge input, he has always been happy to operate in the background, allowing the ‘Rocket Man’ to take near enough 100% of the spotlight and a fair chunk of the credit too.
As a songwriting partnership, they have sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making Elton one of the best-selling artists of all time, but there are many people out there who might never have even heard of his diminutive co-writer. All of this despite the fact that they’ve written a supposed 866 songs together.
In some ways, that proves to be further evidence for the fact that they are perfect foils for each other. One wears shades so garish that they deserve their own spotlight, and the other is, well, the other is Bernie Taupin. This makes it all the more remarkable that they met entirely by chance.
In 1967, both Taupin and Elton answered the same talent call advert placed by Liberty Records in the local papers. But upon attending the Liberty audition, their rise was far from the instant one you might expect. They were both swiftly dismissed by the hitmaking label behind Alvin and the Chipmunks.
After shuffling out of the room with a ‘no thank you’ in his pocket, Elton bemoaned to the receptionist that it was his inability to write lyrics that had let him down. His tardy tripe was belying his piano playing, and the paying punters couldn’t see past his tired platitudes. So, the kind person behind the desk quietly turned away from the disgruntled pianist, dug into the lyrics submissions, and handed him an envelope.
Elton turned on his heels and opened the dossier on a dejected ride home in London’s stuffy underground. Whether it was the atmosphere of the tube or some other fateful magic, we will never know, but the humble words in the envelope, etched by a young Taupin, resonated with the melodies in his mind like strawberries to cream.
The dossier contained the happy little poems of romantic Taupin from his bright-eyed, follically endowed days in Lincolnshire. Elton must’ve felt somewhat comforted by his endearing words, and now, over half a century later, so has half the world over the course of the 30 albums they collaborated on.
This is the sort of sweet, triumphant narrative that they might ironically turn into one of their songs. With an easy style that seems to tap into the best of humanity, their tracks have always proved as transcendent as the story behind their cosmic collaboration. But which does Taupin think is the finest in their unending career?
What songs has Bernie Taupin written with Elton John?
After all, with the exception of The Lion King’s soundtrack, which was written with Tim Rice and the bulk of 1978’s A Single Man, which was written with Gary Osborne after a brief spat, Taupin and Elton have never been apart. Alas, that closeness doesn’t send the songwriter scurrying for the more obscure cuts… quite the contrary.
“You probably never want to hear it again because you’ve heard it so much,” Taupin told CBC Radio, “But ‘Candle in the Wind’, I think, is probably, it could be the closest the closest we’ve come to a perfect song”. The fact that the 1997 version is the second-biggest-selling single of all time (behind Bing Crosby’s White Christmas) is perhaps testimony to this. Although you can’t judge a class by its commerciality, the song has certainly woven its way into the fabric of society at large, exalting itself beyond a mere pop song.
Elton instantly connected with the lyrics and wrote the music in a heartbeat, with Taupin describing it as a “perfect marriage of lyric and melody”. Perhaps this is because Elton related the words and the concept of flickering amid a whirlwind so well.
The misconception behind the hit
As Taupin said of the song: “I think the biggest misconception about ‘Candle In The Wind’ is that I was this rabid Marilyn Monroe fanatic, which really couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not that I didn’t have respect for her. It’s just that the song could just as easily have been about James Dean or Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain.”
He continued, “I mean, it could have been about Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf. I mean, basically, anybody, any writer, actor, actress, or musician who died young and sort of became this iconic picture of Dorian Gray, that thing where they simply stopped ageing. It’s a beauty frozen in time.”
The stresses caused by the industry and media pressure meant that Elton often felt lucky to be with us, so with grace and elegance, he mustered up a melody to marry Taupin’s vows of iconographic praise. That, in Taupin’s book, is perfect, even if it did prompt Keith Richards amid a bitter feud to scathe that Elton’s “writing is limited to songs about dead blondes.”
According to record sales, that’s just fine by the public.
