Happy Birthday to Elton John‘s longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin!!! Taupin, who first teamed up with Elton in 1967, wrote the lyrics to such modern classics as “Bennie And The Jets,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” “Daniel,” “Border Song,” “Take Me To The Pilot,” “Country Comfort,” “Rocket Man,” “Mona Lisa And Mad Hatters,” “Burn Down The Mission,” “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” “Candle In the Wind,” “The Bitch Is Back,” “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word,” “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” “I’m Still Standing,” “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting,” “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny),” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Your Song,” and many others.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin divvied up the duties in supervising the newly released Revamp & Restoration covers collections celebrating the songwriting team’s 50 years of work — with Elton tackling the pop recordings and Bernie shepherding the recording of the country-based tracks. Taupin spoke to The Globe And The Mail and was asked what of the pair’s songs he’s especially proud of: “Things like ‘This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore,’ ‘I Want Love,’ and ‘Sacrifice.’ I’m thrilled that we got them covered. ‘Sacrifice’ is my favorite song. Or ‘Candle In The Wind.’ I think that’s a pretty perfect pop record.”
In 2013 Elton and Taupin were presented with the prestigious Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame Annual Induction and Awards in Manhattan. Elton recalled how the pair — who have often been called the “Lennon & McCartney of the ’70s” — first teamed up, telling Pulse: “I went into Liberty Records in London when I was in a band called Bluesology, and I was getting fed up with playing cabaret, and I thought what can I do — maybe I can write songs. So I went to Liberty Records, saw a guy called Ray Williams, I said, listen, ‘I can’t write lyrics, but I’m sure I can write melody.’ And he said, ‘I’ve got a pile of lyrics on the desk from a guy from Lancashire called Bernie Taupin, take those away.’ You can’t get more ridiculous than that. And I took them away and I started writing to them. And I’ve always. . . really, it’s always been the lyrics first.”
Elton tells Pulse that although the end results of their collaborations are still of the same quality, the way they go about writing now is much different: “The process has changed, they (the lyrics) used to be hand written, in the late ’60s and early ’70s, then they were type-written when we got to Honky Chateau, and now, of course, they’re faxed. And the way that things have changed is that, Bernie, when he first started out, just wrote a page of lyrics and I would divide them into verse (and) chorus. And now, of course, because he’s made albums himself, and he’s become much more musical, he tends to write in the form of verse, chorus, bridge, whatever.”
Despite all the honors and accolades the songwriting team has racked up over the years, Taupin is amazed that there are so few cover versions of their classic songs, saying to Pulse: “We haven’t had that many covers y’know, to be quite honest, which is rather extraordinary. You would think in our career we would’ve had more covers. I like George’s (Michael) version of ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,’ the one he did with Elton was good.”
In 1994 when Elton John was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, he called Taupin up to the stage with him, saying to Pulse that “Without Bernie Taupin, there would be no Elton John.” He gave Taupin his Hall Of Fame trophy, and Taupin has said that it is the only award that he has ever kept — he auctions off most of his awards.
Apart from his success with Elton, Taupin has also written lyrics for other acts — including Starship‘s’ 1985 chart topper “We Built This City” and Heart‘s 1986 Number One hit “These Dreams” — which was originally intended for Stevie Nicks.
Elton John told Pulse that throughout his partnership with Bernie Taupin, one member has never outranked the other: “It’s never been major/minor, it’s always been 50/50, it’s never been. . . we’ve never even thought of it like that, from my point of view, anyway. It’s a relationship that’s never, ever been questioned. It’s always as a one — it’s never split. It’s a complete ‘one’ relationship.”
Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s latest songs were featured on Elton’s 2016 album, Wonderful Crazy Night. The collection hit Number Eight on the Billboard 200 album charts and reached Number Six in the UK.
