Elton on a white piano with a skylight in the secret room. Glen Ballard: “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”ġ975, Rocket Records, Beverly Hills, South Beverly Drive.īernie upstairs writing lyrics. My dad has a white 1968 Mercedes Pagoda Convertible and I originally lived in a more rural part of Ontario, so every summer we would always go for drives in the country side and just blast Honky Cat on repeat. I mean I love every single Elton song is my favorite but “Honky Cat” holds such a special place in my heart. So naturally, I also lose my s–t when I hear it. She absolutely loses her s–t every time it comes on. I love so many of Elton’s songs, but “Bennie and The Jets” is a favorite for both me and my mom. Their first hit is the accumulation of everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve struggled against. There’s something so pure, new and exciting about it – it was Elton before he became Elton. I would say “Your Song” because that was his first hit song. Even at 12 years old I thought this song was really special and I still do. I fell in love with the melody and the lyrics of the song, it takes a deeply complicated feeling - saying goodbye to a part of your life- and makes it feel transcendent. I had an Elton song book when I was first learning to play piano and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” was the most challenging to learn because it had so many changes in the music. Olly Alexander, Years & Years: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
Their selections span the decades and different John eras - but to paraphrase that first top 10 hit, all artists interviewed agree about how wonderful life is while John’s in the world. We’ve already counted down our own 75 favorites from Sir Elton’s extensive catalog - but to further celebrate his birthday, more than three dozen fellow artists have joined us in the task of picking their favorite John track, along with their explanations as to why. He is the only artist to have placed a song in the Hot 100’s top 40 for 30 consecutive years, from 1970 through 1999. He first hit the chart’s top 10 with “Your Song” in 1970 - and just this year, scored his most recent top 10 hit with “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix),” alongside Dua Lipa. That includes his fellow artists.Īs one of the most successful, creative and influential artists of the pop era, John’s charted 58 songs in the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40, making him the top male solo artist on Billboard‘s list of the 125 top artists of all time. For more than 50 years - two thirds of his life - the Rocket Man has provided fans with the soundtrack of their lives. So I kind of took that idea and ran with that.Today, Elton John turns 75. “In that book, there was a story called The Rocket Man, which was about how astronauts in the future would become sort of an everyday job. It actually wasn’t inspired by that at all it was actually inspired by a story by Ray Bradbury, from his book of science fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man. Lyricist Bernie Taupin, who collaborated with Elton on all his major hits explained in 2016: “People identify it, unfortunately, with David Bowie’s Space Oddity. A lot of people thought that the line in the song that says “I'm gonna be high as a kite by then” meant that the track was riddled with evil drug references, but the actual meaning of the song was more literal, coming only three years after man first walked on the moon in July 1969.Įlton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin pose for a portrait in circa 1973.
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