The classic Elton John song he didn’t want to release as a single
While artists may often believe they know best, that’s not always the case. Elton John, known for having his finger on the pulse and accurately predicting songs that will resonate with the masses, experienced a humbling moment when, on one occasion, his label correctly overrode his opinion.
In a perfect world, acts should have the final say when selecting which tracks from their album are chosen as singles. For a start, they were responsible for crafting the art and, therefore, are best placed to decide which songs provide the greatest representation of the forthcoming record. However, this knowledge doesn’t always lead to them making the best decision.
Following the international success of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, Elton could do no wrong, and his next album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, took his superstardom to even loftier heights.
‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ was elected as the lead single from the LP, but the follow-up ‘Benny and the Jets’ proved to be an even greater success. Yet, Elton was hesitant to share the track as a stand-alone release, but despite fighting for ‘Candle In The Wind’, he eventually had to admit defeat.
‘Benny and the Jets’ is a science-fiction story of an all-girl band which inexplicably arrived in the mind of lyricist Bernie Taupin when he least expected it. He once explained: “I’m not sure if it came to me in a dream or was some way the subconscious of effect of watching Kubrick on drugs. Either way, it was definitely something that was totally formed as a concept and something that could have morphed into any number of populist items.”
Due to the left-field concept, John felt ‘Benny and the Jets’ was too bizarre to be anything beyond an album track, but in this instance, he was proved wrong on a grand scale when it became a huge hit.
“When I saw the lyrics for ‘Bennie and the Jets’, I knew it had to be an off-the-wall type song, an R&B-ish kind of sound or a funky sound,” John recalled to Rolling Stone. “The audience sounds were taken from a show we did at the Royal Festival Hall years earlier. The whole thing is very weird”.
He continued: “I didn’t think ‘Bennie and the Jets’ should be a single. I had an argument with MCA, and the only reason I caved was because the song was the No. 1 Black record in Detroit.”
“And I went, ‘Oh my God’. I mean, I’m a white boy from England. And I said, ‘Okay, you’ve got it.’ It just shows you that you can’t see the wood through the trees. To this day, I cannot see that song as a single,” John concluded.
Despite the immense success of ‘Bennie and the Jets’, John remains unconvinced that it should have been released as a single. However, it was the right decision by his label and proved pivotal in further enhancing his superstar status.
