“It’s the closest we ever got”: The song Elton John wanted to sound like The Drifters
For one reason or another, it’s difficult to pin the sound of Elton John down to one specific influence. Having crossed paths with almost every big name in the business, John’s favourites span far and wide, but his artistry has always come from his heart rather than guided by those around him. That always seems to be the case for those who accrue Beatlemania-calibre fanbases, but John seems to have possessed a clear-cut vision from the day he met Bernie Taupin.
Together, they allowed instincts and emotions to be a driving force, often coming up with compositions in a matter of hours based on a handful of Taupin’s scribbles and John’s ability to put anything to the magical notes of the piano. As Taupin once put it: “If you need to get something off your chest, he’s the first person you need to go to to get some easy answers.”
Taupin and John first met at the tail-end of the 1960s and soon became “complete constants” to one another, earning a joint reputation as one of the greatest and most significant writing partnerships in history—within just three years. They possessed a shared shorthand communication, which often included John coming up with a single line or Taupin presenting John with a musical idea, to which they would go away and come up with something destined for a life of timeless radio play.
Except for one odd period of time when they became somewhat estranged, John and Taupin were always destined to cross paths and write some of the greatest tunes in history, from ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘Rocket Man’ to ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ and ‘Crocodile Rock’. Even when channelling the greats that orbited their craft, the music felt unapologetically their own, complete with the signature glimmers of two musical geniuses at the peak of their craft.
One such example was their song ‘Club At The End Of The Street’, a fun and upbeat song about a make-believe function that frequents soul legends like Marvin Gaye, Otis Reading, and all the players the pair always loved to listen to. In many ways, the song appeared as a love letter to everything John and Taupin became endeared to, making it one of the only songs ever to come close to replicating their personal influences.
The defining aspect of their approach to this song was how they attempted to channel The Drifters—the soulful delivery became a solid through-line within the song with lyrics that directly emulated the group’s appeal. The two took this overt decision, with Taupin even writing notes at the bottom of John’s lyric sheet urging him to “Think Drifters”.
As John reflected in 2013, “We wanted to write a song like the Drifters would record, one of those Goffin-King, Brill Building songs. It’s the closest we ever got to one.”
This can be heard in the song’s direct nod to songs like ‘Under the Boardwalk’, not just in the thematic exploration of escaping to a space of solitude but in the nostalgic, 1960s-esque doo-wop sounds that become its defining feature. John and Taupin may not always be so open with the styles or sounds they try to emulate, but on this special occasion, their collaboration became more a celebration of music history rather than a ploy to create it.
