Elton's Wordsmith, Bernie Taupin

A Conversation With the Lyricist, 1976

Everyone gets hooked on music in their own way. Some are grabbed by an artist's musicianship. For others, it's the beat that moves them. For others, it's the singer's charisma, or the group harmony vocals, or guitar solos. A small minority just wait for the drummer to self-immolate, which occurs more often in This is Spinal Tap than in real life, but I suppose it has happened. Hasn't it?

For me, the songs matter more than all of the rest. And words have always been primary. A teacher reading my poems took me out of a teenage tailspin. Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, had me walking around with a notebook in my pocket, jotting down images and rhymes as the thoughts or observations appeared. Guitar-playing friends in high school added music to my lyrics, and the career that chose me allowed me to make a living writing about other people's songs. That two of my writing partners went on to substantial success as musicians and songwriters has allowed me to think maybe we were pretty good.

But you can't go both ways at a crossroads, which is where I found myself in 1970 when presented with a small songwriting contract at $50 each for a few tunes by a big time music publisher. My partner in New York bought in, and did well. For me, finally settled in Boulder, Colo., at what would be my third college in four years, having immediate success getting music articles published locally and nationally, I opted for the music journalism career, and never regretted it.

But I can't say I wasn't jealous of the few stand-alone lyricists for successful artists, such as Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead, and Bernie Taupin, who wrote all of Elton John's lyrics. I liked their songs but in my earliest days was miserly in my praise of their words. It was a character defect, and I knew it. I just tried not be too obvious about it.

Of course, studying what made a song tick is an excellent way to approach criticism, which is why so many reviewers, especially those new at the game, quote lyrics so often: It's the easiest way to fill space. But I enjoyed interviewing the great writers about the craft of song. The most important thing to learn were that rock lyrics were not meant to be read flat on a page.

Bernie Taupin, who wrote the words that Elton John sings, agrees. When I met him in the summer of 1976, Elton was about to begin a "then-uprecedented" seven-night run at Madison Square Garden. A book of lyrics had been released, Bernie Taupin: The One Who Writes the Words for Elton John, with illustrations by Alan Aldridge, famed for his drawings in the Illustrated Beatles Lyrics book, and Mike Dempsey.

"The book can be considered something of an ego trip on my part," Taupin said. "The lyrics aren't meant to be regarded as poetry. I don't want people reciting them. They were written to be sung."

The way John and Taupin worked has always been the same. Words come first. "I just write the lyrics. Give them to him. He writes the song. He plays it for me, and that's it."

The working arrangement between lyricist and composer had been the same since the now-familiar story of how they met.

Around 1969, Taupin, son of a farmer from Lincolnshire, England,  had been working dead-end jobs, most recently in a print shop. "I didn't want to work in a print shop until I was 21 to get my apprenticeship," Taupin told me. "I didn't like being told what to do, either. So I answered the old ad."

The ad was from a music publisher in a British weekly, looking for songwriters. Taupin wrote verse but he didn't play an instrument; a shy, bespectacled piano player named Reginald Dwight composed lovely music, had played with a band called Bluesology featuring Long John Baldry, but did not have a way with words. Reg changed his name to Elton John (in tribute to Bluesology members Baldry and Elton Dean), and after a few early missteps, their songs caught on. At the time Taupin and I spoke at the Sherry-Nederland Hotel near Central Park, in 1976, Elton John was the biggest star of the seventies: 42 million albums, 20 million singles sold.

Bennie was “about a futuristic electronic lady,” Taupin said

I found a sneaky way to express my jealousy of Taupin's success as a non-musical lyricist. I suggested that while some critics adored the 1970 official debut album Elton John, with hits "Border Song" and "Your Song," there were "others," whomever they were, found the "orchestrations cumbersome and the lyrics mawkish." (Yes, I wrote that at the time.)

Surprisingly, Taupin agreed with me. "I find the first album rather pompous now. It was valid for its time, but I find it pretentious. We were trying to prove we were young men very serious about writing. Eventually, we realized that didn't have to be the case. We started enjoying ourselves with Honky Chateau (1972) and Don't Shoot the Piano Player (1973)."

You should remember Elton and Bernie were part of the old-time recording and publishing industry, which demanded "product" to be released early and often. Between 1970 and 1976, no less than 14 albums had been released, including a soundtrack (Friends), some live albums, and a greatest hits album, as well as Empty Sky, a 1969 album that preceded the major label coming out of Elton John. There was worry from all quarters: radio, sales, critics, that Elton John would burn out, you know, like a "Candle in the Wind." He went through some difficult times, but did not crash and burn. On his North American "Farewell Tour," a new date has recently been added for November 2022 in Las Vegas.

Fortunately, Taupin had an obsession to fuel his prolific lyric writing: the American Old West, exotic and fertile territory to a poor English kid who'd grown up watching U.S. westerns and TV shows. Tumbleweed Connection. Caribou (named after the Colorado recording studio at which it was recorded). Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Rock of the Westies. All number one albums through 1976.

He was so enamored of the West that he was drinking a Coors beer, then very much a regional cult beer that was difficult to find in New York. Like other Coors-loving celebrities (I think I recall a story about Paul Newman doing this), Taupin had his Coors shipped by the case from Golden, Colo. Having survived the lager ordinaire 3.2 per cent alcohol Coors we inhaled by the bucket at the University of Colorado (the only legal drink between ages of 18 and 21), I knew the Coors cult was a trick of the light, but I wasn't going to spoil this for Bernie.

"I wrote all the lyrics for Tumbleweed Connection before I even came to America," Taupin said. "As a kid, I'd watch everything from The Lone Ranger to Clint Eastwood movies." His Western memorabilia collection at the time included a book autographed by Pat Garrett as well as one, also signed, by a member of the Dalton gang.

Taupin said Elton himself was getting tired of his writer's western obsession. On 1975's Rock of the Westies (released just five months after Captain Fantastic and underrated at the time), the one major ballad is "I Feel Like a Bullet in the Gun of Robert Ford," the man who shot Jesse James–in the back. "It was a love song filled with self-hatred," Taupin said. "It could have been subtitled 'I Feel Like a Jerk for Dropping You in Such a Sneaky Way.' "

I asked Taupin to go into some detail about some the best known hits of Elton's first golden era. I wish I had used this technique more often when interviewing songwriters. Here's how it read:

ROCKET MAN: "In the future the job of the astronaut will be very much on the same level as garbage collector. Even now [1976], space flights get very little coverage. Soon it will be like a 9-to-5 job." When I noted that lines such as "I miss the Earth so much/I miss my wife" are mundane, he again agrees: "It's meant to be mundane."

BENNIE AND THE JETS: "It was a look at the future of rock and roll. Bennie was originally meant to be the leader of a female rock and roll band. A futuristic electronic lady." He added that it was "a fascist look at rock and roll, in which rock had become compulsory. Hence the lyric, "Hey, kids, plug into the faithless."

PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM: "Elton asked if I could write a song called 'Philadelphia Freedom' because of [Billie Jean King's] tennis team he was involved with. I said, 'I'm not going to write a song about tennis. He said, "you don't have to. That would be silly, a rock and roll song about tennis'." I had trouble with that–what could I write about? So I just wrote about freedom."