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Elton John · S5 E5
Wembley 1977
Elton announces his retirement from touring. The crowd weeps. It lasts exactly two years
November 3, 1977. Elton John stands at the piano inside Wembley Empire Pool, looks out at 20,000 fans, and tells them this is the last time.
Elton John -- Kiss the Bride (1983). Six years after that tearful goodbye at Wembley, Elton is back with Bernie, back with a band, and back in the charts. The man who swore he was done couldn't stay away.
The Breaking Point
By late 1977, Elton is exhausted. The pace of the last seven years has been relentless: albums every six months, tours that cross continents, a double album the critics savaged. He wants out. Not just from touring, but from the Elton and Bernie songwriting partnership too.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who made a surprise appearance at Elton's farewell show?
The 500 Copies
Elton also debuted "The Goaldiggers Song" that night, a charity single pressed in a limited run of just 500 copies, half of them autographed. The song was performed once, at this concert, and never played live again.
Wembley Empire Pool, London
The venue where Elton said goodbye to touring, now known as the OVO Arena Wembley. Twenty thousand fans watched him walk off stage for what he said would be the last time.
How long did Elton John's 1977 'retirement' from touring actually last?
The Farewell That Wasn't
Song for Guy -- Elton John
Released in 1978, a year after the farewell show. A mostly instrumental piece with just four whispered words: "Life isn't everything." Elton wrote it while imagining himself floating above his own body, dying. The next morning he learned that Guy Burchett, a 17-year-old messenger at Rocket Records, had been killed in a motorcycle accident that very same afternoon.
Song for Guy, Elton John (1978)
There are only four words in the entire song: "Life isn't everything." No Bernie Taupin, no elaborate verses. Just a piano melody, a synthesizer pulse, and a truth that a 17-year-old kid on a motorcycle will never get to hear.
The Shortest Goodbye
The retirement lasts about as long as it takes Elton to get bored. He records A Single Man without Bernie in 1978 and returns to touring by 1979. The goodbye at Wembley was real in the moment. The moment just didn't last.
Elton is back onstage, but the music is getting worse. Next: Victim of Love, a disco album where Elton doesn't play a single note of piano, and the absolute lowest point of his recording career.
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