Glastonbury 2023: Watch Elton John perform ‘Your Song’
As part of his headline performance at Glastonbury Festival, Elton John delivered a powerhouse performance of his iconic hit ‘Your Song’.
Elton’s performance at Glastonbury is an extremely emotional one, given that the singer bids farewell to the UK as Worthy Farm marks his final show in Britain before retirement.
Reflecting on his decision to retire, Elton, 76, said: “I’m going to go out in the biggest possible way, performing at my very best, with the most spectacular production I’ve ever had, playing in places that have meant so much to me throughout my career … This has been an incredible tour so far, full of the most amazing highs, and I look forward to making more wonderful memories with you at these final shows.”
In 1967, teenage musicians 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 parent’s 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’.
“The original lyric was written very rapidly on the kitchen table of Elton’s mother’s apartment in Northwood Hills in the suburbs of London, if I recall, on a particularly grubby piece of exercise paper,” Taupin remembered. From there, Taupin took the coffee-stained lyric sheet to John and, sitting in his living room, came up with a melody in 20 minutes.
Taupin said, ”This one is the one I recall like it was yesterday. The rest of them I’m a little shaky on. In retrospect, and I’ve said it on several occasions, I see this song as a bookend and its counterpart would be a song like ‘Sacrifice.’ ‘Your Song’ being a song about absolute naiveté in love while ‘Sacrifice’ is the complete opposite, the story of someone who’s seen and done it all, as far as love’s concerned, and come out the other end scarred but realistic about certain aspects of the real world.”
Watch Elton John play ‘Your Song’ at Glastonbury 2023 below.
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