He imagined the yellow brick roads and rocket men that helped make Elton John famous.
He thinks theres more to come.
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For more than 50 years, Bernie Taupin has givenElton Johns indelible melodies far more than their words.
He has given them their plots, characters, controls, attitudes, even their worldviews.
His lyrics tell stories often eccentric ones and John makes them sing.
And nearly always in that order.
Like Dylan, Taupins isnt big on detailing a songs meaning or inspiration.
But if youre patient, there are plenty of tasty revelations along the way.
It wouldnt matter if I was Elon Musk, Taupin said as we sat in his tranquil backyard.
Im much more at ease with a smaller world and a simpler life.
Elton published his memoir,Me, four years ago.
Did you consult with him on that?Actually, no, but I really enjoyed it.
It sounded like Elton.
But I didnt know you didnt likeBlue Moves.Thats one of my favorite albums!
I said, I didnt say I didnt like it.
I said I made some poor choices in what I wrote about.
Some of the songs are too depressing.
Its got some good stuff on it: Cage the Songbird, Idol.
But I think it probably could have been a single album.
Why?Maybe the title is unfortunate.
I actually fought against it initially.
But thats publishers for you!
Thats not to say that we didnt remain as close.
In fact, in some ways, I think were closer now because we understand each other.
Maybe its not Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, but itpaid off in spades!
Neither you nor Elton wrote a lot about the songwriting process in your books.
In the book, you do reveal the inspirations for some songs that youve rarely or never discussed before.
I am not as besotted with her the way a lot of people are.
He was a pretty delicate flower.
But people dont know that.
Thats interesting because by that time you were well versed in gay culture.
Such as?Subterranean gay clubs.
You have to remember that back in the 60s,it was still an offenseand it was pretty dangerous.
It was a whole different culture.
I dont think the wordgaywas even used.
So much of the terminology that is current didnt exist back then.
There was no attitude of trying to change things.
Its been interesting for me to see how gay culture has evolved over the years.
Long John Baldry was the ringmaster for the initial phase.
At one point he, almost unknowingly, put a hand on your knee.
My mother was an extraordinary woman, a complete bohemian in her youth.
She had been raised around a lot of gay people.
She ran with a very arty crowd.
Through her, I had tolerance for a lot of things that kids in my area did not.
While I was raised in a country area, my parents came from the city.
Was she also responsible for your literary interests?Yes, and through my dad.
Thats where I got my love forGraham Greene,who he read religiously.
They were completely flawed the lonely wives, the whiskey priest.
If you take an album likeGoodbye Yellow Brick Road, there are no love songs on it.
Thats whats interesting to me.
Thats a fascinating approach for a writer who has had such a profound impact on the pop mainstream.
Most songs that are as popular as yours express idealized love or bland pining.
Yours are unconventional.Ill tell you exactly why.
I have a thing: I cannot lie.
Theres too much lying in the world.
Its like an accepted vice.
Are you referring to Trump?
George Santos?Im not going to blame one side or the other.
you’re free to say Trump, you’re free to say Biden.
Every time Kamala Harris opens her mouth, she usually says something stupid or lies.
Theyre like cookie-cutter villains.
I have no time for any of them.
Ill tell you what bothers me in songs when somebody states something that I dont believe is true.
How many songs have you heard where the lyric says, Ill die if you dont love me.
No, you wont!
Youre not going to die!
I will never, ever write something like that.
The first line says something about a train bound for nowhere.
What do you mean?
That train is goingsomewhere,man!
I know thats supposed to be a metaphor, but its still dumb.
One of the worst ever!
Because who says, tonic and gin?
Id kill myself rather than do that!
The fact that our tracks werent banned!
I mean Rocket Man wasnt banned, and it talks about being high as a kite by then.
Back then, radio was incredibly sensitive to any references to drugs or sex.
Our songs were riddled with them.
The Bitch Is Back got played!
Someone once said thatYellow Brick Roadwas one of the filthiest albums ever made, and its probably true.
Its all about weird situations, gay situations, straight situations, pornographic situations.
Im incredibly proud of the fact that we tested the waters and got away with things.
By contrast, your breakthrough hit, Your Song, was totally sweet and naive.
Were you that way back then?Thats almost written by somebody whos never had sex.
And I probably hadnt at the time.
Did you know immediately,This is it?Not after I wrote the lyrics.
Certainly, after Elton composed it.
There was sort of a look between us of,Hmmm.
We might be onto something here.
I like that one!
It puts the listener inside the narrators head.
Believe me, I didnt have that in mind at the time.
When you first moved to London, you and Elton were writing and living together.
What kind of roommate was he?We got on great.
I mean it really was him and me against the world.
He was certainly more cosmopolitan than me.
He played in bands.
He traveled around the Continent.
So obviously hed done a lot more than I had.
I was a little green behind the ears, but I was, hazard to say, pretty intelligent.
I was well read.
I was well versed in the arts.
But I was also very shy.
I was pretty sensitive, and Elton understood that.
He was definitely a big brother.
Were they role models for you?I certainly wouldnt call them role models.
But Im sure we tried to emulate the things that both Procol Harum and King Crimson were doing.
It was very much in the same wheelhouse as I was trying to form lyrics at the time.
I was reading a lot of science fantasy and mythology.
One of her books was calledThe King Must Die.
You did so decisively onTumbleweed Connectionin 1970.
It was wall-to-wall Americana.
Many music critics think that it was the best Band album the Band didnt make.
Robbie Robertson died recently.
You knew him, right?Yes.
In fact, we played Robbie an acetate ofTumbleweed Connectionbefore it came out.
It might have been at the Warwick Hotel in New York.
He invited us up to his room.
I wanted to write about the West.
I wanted an Americana slang to come into play, and I wanted to write about American history.
But I felt,Are people ready for this?
It was still Cream and Jimi Hendrix and all those very psychedelic bands.
It was loud and hippieish.
The Band completely changed all that.
Levon Helm was particularly vocal and angry about it.
Where do you fall on that?I have to say I kind of lean into Levons camp.
I dont want to speak ill of the dead now that Robbie has passed.
All I can say is that I think Robbies ideology drifted and changed.
He had come a long way from Woodstock and the Band in the basement.
Robbie liked high society.
He liked to travel with the elite.
One of the things Robbie gotknockedfor was the documentary he did on the Band.
He waited until everybody had died, except for Garth, but Garth is pretty incapacitated now.
Rick Danko was the one I was closest to in the group.
Levon was an interesting guy.
How so?He was kind of a prickly character.
The only one who I dont think was, was Levon.
He was the real deal.
I thought that was pretty funny.
Before the Band, you were drawn to American country music.
Why was country your muse?It was more narrative than those other forms.
There were stories, and I gravitated to stories.
They were like my comic books.
How many people have said to you, I saw Elvis, and it changed my life?
I never saw Elvis on TV, so he didnt really mean anything where I grew up.
Country music made me want to be a writer.
Beyond the sound of the music, it seems you were also taken with the American character of thecowboy.
When I saw the Lone Ranger, I went,Nah, thats not the way it was.
The silver-plated guns and skintight suits and white hat just wasnt happening for me.
Then I saw Fred ZinnemannsHigh Noon, which I loved.
Theres something edgy about it.
Gary Cooper was so brilliant and so stoic.
Then, of course, everything changed when SamPeckinpah came and blew everything away.
His films were dusty.
I went,Thats it!
Theres a parallel bit of confusion about the song Levon.Everybody assumes it was named after Levon Helm.
Im not sure it was.
Well, how many Levons are there?Exactly!
But I dont remember going,Yeah, Im going to use Levons name for this song.
Thats not how things work with the way I write.
People assume the songs are about things when theyre not.
People thinkIdolis about Elvis, but I dont think Id ever set out to write a song about Elvis.
In Eltons book, he says that people always think some songs you wrote are about him that arent.
Can you give an example?The one that everybody gets wrong is Im Still Standing.
They all think its about Eltons strong will to survive, and it wasnt.
It was written as my kiss-off to an old girlfriend.
But Id rather that people think of it as an anthem for Elton.
Were good friends now.
You know who was appalled that Daniel was not about a gay relationship?
He wouldnt believe it.
He was completely affronted by that.
That whole song seems to be about Elton sniping back at the press.
That song was my response in defense of my friend.
It was all very churlish and unnecessary.
They should have been proud of him for countering the burgeoning American singer-songwriter movement and being their champion.
Was it?It certainly could have been.
I give a shot to put a little bit of both of us into the songs.
I dont want to hog the limelight lyrically.
I wanted to ask a bit about your writing process with Elton.
I think maybe the content of the lyrics stipulated what the song should be.
So I think the lyrics themselves dictated the melody ultimately.
But he likes it that way and weve done it for decades.
When I started, I didnt really know how to write a song.
You see a lot of those early manuscripts, theyre all over the place.
Theres no such thing as a bridge or an extended verse or chorus.
So, Elton has my everlasting admiration for being able to make any sense out of any of it.
If you saw the original manuscripts of them, they would look very different.
In that sense, was Elton your editor early on?I suppose so.
Despite the great connection you two developed in your work, you have lived separately since the early 70s.
My eyes were ever across the seas in America.
In 1970, you guys were already getting big in the U.S.
But by the mid-70s you werent just big.
You wereBeatlesbig.When did you first realize the insane scope of your fame?Im not sure I ever did!
]The thing about Elton is his ability to track everything.
Youre talking about a guy who knows every place hes ever played and when he played it.
He followed all the charts.
I never did that.
I never knew where our records were on the charts.
I mean, somebody would tell me, We came in at No.
Id say, Great, cool.
Now lets go get a drink.
Then, I got a life outside of it.
Before, I was in all the places the band was.
I mean a Greyhound bus with no bathroom!
Youd spend all your time traveling.
I loved New York.
I even loved it back in the 70s when it was rotten and miserable.
Once I became acclimated, it was fantastic.
Was the song Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters written about that acclimation process?Definitely.
Thats when I wrote Rose trees never grow in New York City.
But that song wasnt finished until far later.
I can embellish this.
Why did you want to do that?I dont know.
It wasnt a very good idea.
To be honest with you, I cant even remember how the song goes orwhat the lyric is.
Elton played the original song at the Concert for 9/11 and nobody said, Thats an antiNew York song.
Why would you play it?
I think people already realized it was a salute.
He became known for wearing the most theatrical costumes imaginable.
And he knows I loathed that.
I certainly much preferred it when he toned it down.
As the 70s went on and you became more successful, Elton started to get lost in drugs.
You also did your share, mainly cocaine, and you even freebased once.
But you never went nearly as far as Elton with that stuff.
I would say my drug use was recreational.
I dont remember doing drugs during the day.
However, for most of the period of the book, you are wildly, hilariously drunk.
Because I was never a mean drunk.
Are you sober today?I still like a drink.
But I stopped taking drugs cold.
Had I been privy to that, that would have alarmed me more.
I was just more concerned with being in the moment and trying to defuse things.
Elton could be very loud and very illogical.
I remember being on the plane with him and hed say, Im not going to do the show.
You just had to wait for the hot air to evaporate.
Hed ask me to come over to his apartment and have a go at do some writing.
It just wasnt happening.
The apartment itself was so depressing.
It was dark, and there were all these weaselly drug dealers hanging around.
When news of that broke, it’s possible for you to imagine how gay people like me felt.Traitor!
It was such an insane period, certainly with drugs and alcohol.
He would spend hours with her.
I dont remember anyone thinking it was odd at first.
But nobody tried to stop him.
He was so set in his ways, you couldnt tell him no.
But the whole thing was a ridiculous, Felliniesque episode.
It was a little bit like our version of John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ.
It was a temporary hiccup.
What about when Elton finally did come fully out in the 90s.
You dont want to be hiding from anything.
By the late 70s, you and Elton took a break from each other as writing partners.
You write in your book that the split was amicable, but you dont say why it happened.
We had gone as far as we could go at that point.
I think we were both a little afraid.
We didnt know where we could go next.
Elton made one album completelywith another writerafter that.
He made a disco album.
But later, Elton had tremendous success working with another lyricist, Tim Rice, onThe Lion KingandAida.
What did you think of that stuff?I wouldnt have wanted to have done that.
Its too formulaic for me.
Youre at the mercy of the studios.
I dont like that whole system.
Its so draining and non-creative.
Youve also written with a bunch of other people over the years.
One song you have a credit on has become a lightning rod for hatred, We Built This City.
Its been voted one of the worst songs ever by media outlets from VH1 toRolling Stone.
Why do you think critics hate that song so much?I wear that as a badge of honor.
In fact, on my desk, I have a cartoon called The Argyle Sweater, by Scott Hilburn.
It lists torture methods ranked by pain level.
28 is the wrack; 8 is the iron maiden; 2 is We Built This City.
I could give a crap if people dont like it.
Its been very good to my family, and it gets used in commercials.
But I did, so I do.
But you dont like every song you wrote.
In the book, you write of your No.
1 hitIsland Girl,the less said about it, the better.Thats one thats been erased from our work.
You will never see it on a greatest-hits album!
I dont know what I was thinking of.
Do you see it as potentially racist?Oh, good Lord, no.
I dont think its racist.
In Island Girl I could be singing the same thing about a white girl.
Its just the way its written.
It was just a straight sexist, misogynistic song.
You call bullshit on that, saying that it was always inappropriate.
Jimmy Page walking around with a 14-year-old girl even back then, it was horrifying.
I mightve done some dumb things, but I would never have been dumb enough to engage in that.
Plus I liked older women anyway.
I reconnected with her when she was older.
Her name was Cynthia.
Ultimately, she ODed.
Theres a song I wrote,Blues Never Fade Away.There are three people in it.
Then theres a verse about Cynthia, and a verse about Gianni Versace, who was assassinated.
You spoke earlier of songs of yours you dislike.
What about whole albums?Jump Up.
Thats a messy album.
Its only got one good song on it,Empty Garden.Its worth buying the album for.
Later on, we made an album calledThe Big Picture, which I never liked.
The songs are okay.
I just didnt like the way they were recorded.
It was all synthetic, and it would have behooved it to have had a more organic undertow.
It was a horrible record to make.
But we all make shitty albums and songs, evenBob Dylan.
Theres a great one with You cant plant me in your penthouse.
People thought it was My cat just peed in your penthouse!
Theyve done commercials about this!
He goes, Thats completely wrong!
and she says, Ive been singing it that way for years!
Not all of those are great albums.
In terms of later songs you like, you highlight I Want Love from 2001.
Its kind of mundane, so you think this is going to be boring.
Then you go, Whoa, okay, hes got something to say!
That came from a real place.
You hear them saying, I dont want this kind of love.
But then you listen, and you know, Yeah, he does.
You write in your book that one of the later songs that youre proudest of is Sacrifice from 1989.
Its about a relationship falling apart.
Its almost like the antithesis of Your Song, which is so virginal.
Thats the start of the journey on how you perceive love.
Sacrifice is the bookend to that, where you find out that love is a tough game sometimes.
You said earlier that you dont think its interesting to write about happiness.
Are there other positive subjects you favor?Redemption is good to write about.
Thats about finding your way.
Theyre mainly famous nut-jobs, bores, and boobs.
[Bursts out laughing.
]He was not a hygienic entity by any means.
I know hes revered by many as being theenfant terriblegenius.
He certainly didnt come across that way to me.
I never heard anything of his that moved me in any way.
He certainly wasntCharles Aznavour, who was one of the nicest men Ive known in my life.
Just a beautiful man.
He was a great draughtsman, brilliant.
But also a poseur and a complete carny.
He did the same tricks more than once.
They can do a process that stops it from aging.
You also had unfortunate encounters with several classic 70s cast members ofSaturday Night Live.
We all have our moments.
Actually, Chevy Chase is pretty well known for being obnoxious.Thats a good point.
Had I not heard that elsewhere on many occasions I might not have mentioned it.
I tend to give everybody the benefit of the doubt.
Theres a funny anecdote in the book where John Belushi insulted my girlfriend, so I knocked him out.
But I give him the credit that he called the next day and said, How cool was that?
I just dont think he was a good drunk.
The two people I do rag on are John Bonham and Peter Grant, who were just bullies.
They were so mean and nasty.
I dont like bullies, and I will call a bully out.
That was a decadent time in music in general.
But it was also an extremely lucrative time for songwriters.
With 50 percent of the publishing on the songs, you have been very well compensated for your work.
Anybody coming up today who wants to make a living as a songwriter is in dire straits.
But I dont know what can be done.
There are just a few of us left who are holding on.
Would you ever consider selling?Were not doing anything right now.
When they want it, theyre going to have to pay alotof money.
Is there an emotional component to holding on as well?Of course.
Its a cliche, but theyre like your children and theyve been very good to us.
So you have to treat them well.
At the same time, other parts of Eltons career are winding down now.
He ended his touring life in July.
How do you feel about that?Im good with it.
I understand completely his reasons for doing it.
Hes got two wonderful sons, and he wants to spend time with them.
When people hear that hes not going to tour anymore, they go,Oh yeah, right.
But could you imagine a scenario if, two years from now he went, Just kidding.
Im going back on the road!?
He would be crucified!
What people need to remember is that he said hes not going totouranymore.
That would be fabulous because theres enough of a fan base out there that would love that.
Ill tell you what he wont do.
He will certainly never go out and sing Crocodile Rock or Saturday Night or Daniel the greatest hits again.
Will you still be writing new songs to record in the studio with Elton?Oh yeah.
Were coming up with ideas right now.
Ive only got one, and thats for Lifetime Achievement.
You know what, though?
I could give a shit because the Grammys never meant anything to me.
But I never know when theyre on.
I never watch them.
You say thats because Im not actually writing a song.
Im just contributing to a melody.
But, if youre not a songwriter, what are you?Im an observer, a chronicler.
Even lyricist sounds too professional.
I think Im a storyteller.
Lets leave it at that.
