The Elton John classic he never believed in: “I can’t see it being a single”
Every artist can occasionally be their own worst enemies when picking their best material. There’s only so much that you can put onto one album, so the process of whittling it down to the best songs or the most potential hits isn’t always easy. Sometimes it means letting go of tunes far superior to the chart toppers, but even with as many amazing tracks Elton John put on the hit parade, he thought that ‘Bennie and the Jets’ should have never seen the light of day.
But when Elton John and his band were working on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, there was an ‘anything goes’ mentality to every single tune. The idea of doing a massive double album was bound to ruffle some feathers at the record company, but it’s impossible to pair it down to a single release if it meant losing amazing deep cuts like ‘Roy Rogers’ or the epic opening on ‘Funeral for a Friend’.
Whereas the entire record balances the light and dark side of John’s discography, ‘Bennie and the Jets’ is by far one of the sillier tracks that he had ever released. Then again, for someone like John to turn in a song that turns on the theatrical side of rock and roll this hard almost made too much sense.
After all, this was when the British rock scene was still knee-deep in the glam rock scene, with acts like Marc Bolan and David Bowie still seeing massive hits on the charts. John could keep up with them just as well with this kind of downtempo bluesy romp, but he thought the song wouldn’t go anywhere when they talked about releasing it as a single.
When talking about the record to Classic Albums, John said that he could never picture the song doing that well on the charts, saying, “To this day, I can’t see ‘Bennie and the Jets’ being a single, and I fought tooth and nail against it coming out on the Yellow Brick Road album.” It’s not like John didn’t have a point.
For as omnipresent as the tune is now, many people forget just how weird it is in the grand scheme of the album. There are glam rock tunes galore across the project, along with singer-songwriter ballads, and then suddenly, here comes this song that sounds like a weird take on what soul music sounds like on the other side of the world.
Even when releasing it, John’s promoter Pat Pipolo remembered the pianist leaving an angry message on the phone, saying, “I remember him saying, ‘Are you willing to put your career on the line?’ I said, ‘Not really, but I think we should release it as a single. I think you would be a great R&B artist as well as a pop artist.’”
Somehow, against all odds, it seemed to work. Despite being the kind of kid known for wearing the most outlandish outfits anyone had ever seen, John managed to get a spot on Soul Train right alongside the day’s flavours, all while singing about the wonders of electric boots and mohair suits. John was already one of the biggest names in the world, but it takes a special kind of artist to make someone start dancing to a tune that sounds like it should be happening light-years away.
