Elton John does not need to be introduced here – he is one of the most famous musicians in history with a massive list of hits and accolades to go along with his fame. While Elton John is the name plastered on all the awards and across sold-out arena marquees all over the world, the songs themselves are actually the work of a songwriting duo, of which Elton John is only half. The other half is a guy named Bernie Taupin. In this article, we will explore the unconventional compositional approach that the duo has employed over the years to produce numerous hit songs.
Bernie Taupin: The Unsung Lyricist Behind Elton John’s Greatest Hits
Bernie Taupin is not a household name like Elton John, but he has penned the words to most of Elton’s biggest hits. He has also co-written hit songs for other artists, such as “We Built This City” for Starship and “These Dreams” by Heart with another composer named Martin Page. Taupin has tried his hand as a performer as well – he released two solo albums, “Taupin” (1971) and “He Who Rides the Tiger” (1980), and later fronted the band Farm Dogs, which released two albums in the 1990s which also didn’t perform well, commercially, at least compared to the juggernaut discography of Elton John.
Taupin is, specifically, a lyricist, meaning that he comes up with the words to songs but doesn’t really compose any of the music framing them. Essentially, how Taupin and Elton John work together is that Taupin comes up with sets of lyrics, puts them in a folder, and delivers them to Elton. Elton peruses the lyrics and finds some that speak to him musically. From there, he composes music and melody to fit the lyrics, not so much based on what the lyrics actually are or what they say, but more to fit the phrasing of the words.
This sort of songwriting relationship is highly unusual, as they are rarely writing together in the same room, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney (The Beatles), Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones), Hall & Oates, or any of the other famous songwriting duos do. According to Elton John, as he claimed in an interview with Rolling Stone, he sometimes has no idea what the lyrics are about until years after the song is finished.
Inside Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Unusual Songwriting Process
According to most accounts, Elton John would famously compose songs incredibly quickly after seeing something in the lyrics that inspired a melody in his head. During the recording of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” he would often compose songs while having breakfast and record them right after, as the engineer for that album, David Hentschel, claimed in an interview for Sound on Sound, “[they were] writing and recording a song in the time it takes to make a chicken sandwich”. This unorthodox arrangement enabled Elton John and his band to maintain a remarkably demanding pace of releasing two albums per year, which he did throughout the early 70s.
Elton would sometimes remove himself from the production and post-production of the songs, too. When he recorded his tracks for “Bennie and the Jets,” he was surprised to learn about the post-production that was done to the song, making it appear as if the song had been recorded at a live performance. The breakneck writing and recording schedule did add a certain energy and rock and roll looseness to the music.
Taupin usually works out the songs on guitar to develop a mood or feel for the songs and, as he told The New York Times, will sometimes note that mood or feel along with the set of lyrics. These terms may be somewhat vague, but they gave Elton a general idea of what Bernie intends the song’s vibe to be. Often, the melody Taupin had in mind while writing the songs didn’t match up with the melody that Elton uses when composing the music.
The Rare Times Taupin Flipped the Songwriting Dynamic
On rare occasions, as with “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” Elton John would come up with a melody and show it to Taupin, who would write a set of lyrics to accompany the melody, but this was an exception. The majority of Elton’s hits were composed in the process described, where the lyricist and the composer are in separate rooms. This fact has been confirmed in multiple interviews, including those with KCLU. This unusual arrangement led to hit songs like “Tiny Dancer,” “Your Song,” and “Rocket Man“.
One song that had somewhat of a push and pull was “Candle In The Wind,” which was originally written about Marilyn Monroe, and the title was inspired by a quote about Janis Joplin. Then years later, in 1997, after the passing of Princess Diana, Taupin rewrote the lyrics but retained the original melody and became, according to Guinness World Records, one of the best-selling singles of all time.
The Power of Collaboration: What Made the Elton-Taupin Partnership Endure
Elton John’s collection of hit songs stands as proof that behind every great artist is a team of people who work to make it all happen. In the case of Bernie Taupin, it may mean that they never get the fame or accolades and have to settle for having written some of the greatest songs of all time.
I once had a gig at a studio where a sign on the wall read, “It’s amazing what we can accomplish when nobody cares who gets the credit.” That always stuck with me. It seems that Bernie Taupin adhered to that credo – he focused on writing the best lyrics that he possibly could and allowed Elton John to do the best job composing that he possibly could. Even though there was a disconnect, with each writer not being in the same room, perhaps it helped that they both stayed in their own lane, avoiding the squabbles that so many of the other aforementioned songwriting duos have famously had through the years.
