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Elton John · S2 E4
Your Song
Written at the breakfast table in 20 minutes. The song that announces Elton John to the world
Breakfast at Frome Court, and Bernie slides a lyric sheet across the kitchen table. Elton reads the opening line: "It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside."
Elton John -- Your Song. The take you hear is the first and only vocal pass. Producer Gus Dudgeon heard a crack in the voice and decided it was more honest than anything a second take could deliver.
Twenty Minutes at the Piano
Elton reads Bernie's lyric once, sits down at the upright piano, and the melody arrives almost immediately. The entire composition takes roughly twenty minutes. No revisions, no second draft. The song that changes everything is written over coffee before lunch.
TAP TO REVEAL: What stain marks the original lyric sheet?
“It was the first great song we wrote together. I knew it the moment I played it back. Everything before that had been us trying to be other people. This was just us.”
— Elton John
What did producer Gus Dudgeon do with the imperfect vocal take of Your Song?
Sixty Years On -- Elton John
The opening track of the self-titled Elton John album, recorded in the same sessions as "Your Song." Paul Buckmaster's sweeping string arrangement transforms a quiet ballad into something cinematic. It hints at the ambition that would define everything that followed.
"Your Song" opens every door. Next: Gus Dudgeon, Paul Buckmaster, and the self-titled album that turns a staff songwriter into a genuine contender.
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