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Elton John has many iconic songs in his discography. Songs like “Rocket Man”, “Bennie and the Jets”, and “Crocodile Rock” have lasted through multiple generations and continue to be prominent today. However, there is one timeless Elton John song that he believes is “perfect” and says it “gets better every time I sing it.”
Elton John said ‘Your Song’ is ‘perfect’
In a conversation with Rolling Stone, Elton John selected 20 songs that define his life. One of the songs he selected is one of his earliest hits, “Your Song”. It’s a love ballad released in 1970 that gave John attention worldwide. The track was first recorded by American rock band Three Dog Night, who didn’t release it as a single as they wanted to give John his shot.
Fortunately, John’s version was a massive success, and he considers it to be a “perfect” song. He said it gave him and frequent collaborator and songwriter Bernie Taupin major confidence moving forward.
“What can I say, it’s a perfect song. It gets better every time I sing it,” John said. “I remember writing it at my parents’ apartment in North London, and Bernie giving me the lyrics, sitting down at the piano and looking at it and going, ‘Oh, my God, this is such a great lyric, I can’t f*** this one up.’ It came out in about 20 minutes, and when I was done, I called him in, and we both knew. I was 22, and he was 19, and it gave us so much confidence.”
Who was ‘Your Song’ written about?
The lyrics of “Your Song” appear extremely personal to Bernie Taupin. However, the songwriter has never revealed who the song is about, and Elton John has never revealed it. In a 1989 Music Connection interview (shared by songfacts.com), John said even though the lyrics are naive, it’s universal because it represents what young love feels like. He could never sing it now because that’s not what love feels like at an older age.
“It’s like the perennial ballad ‘Your Song,’ which has got to be one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music, but I think the reason it still stands up is because it was real at the time. That was exactly what I was feeling. I was 17 years old and it was coming from someone whose outlook on love or experience with love was totally new and naïve. Now I could never write that song again or emulate it because the songs I write now that talk about love coming from people my age usually deal with broken marriages and where the children go. You have to write from where you are at a particular point in time, and ‘Your Song’ is exactly where I was coming from back then.”
How did ‘Your Song’ perform on the charts?
While “Your Song” isn’t one of Elton John’s No. 1 hits, it still put Sir Elton on the map. He had plenty of success in the U.K., and this track saw his popularity spreading internationally. It became a top 10 hit worldwide, peaking at No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100. Domestically, it reached No. 7 in the U.K. Other versions of the song have also been recorded by Rod Stewart, Ellie Goulding, and Lady Gaga.
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