The idea of the love song was perfected in 1970 with a 19 year old Bernie Taupin, as crazy as that can sound. Well, it becomes less implausible when you remember the song in question is Your Song.
Your Song was the second single from Elton John’s self-titled sophomore album, and a B-side at that. It was the biggest hit to Elton’s career at the time, and at large the world’s introduction to the great and fantastical world of Elton John that he would be bringing with him later in the decade. The song was written by Bernie over breakfast at Elton’s mom and step-dad’s home, the original sheet of lyrics said to have a scrambled egg stain. He said he wrote the song in late 1969, Elton recording it in January of 1970 and its subsequent release in October of the same year.
The song, in its most distilled essence, is about innocent, young love. The song follows the narrator explaining his genuine admiration of someone they deeply love. There’s no descriptor of who exactly this person is, not the connection, gender, or even the relationship status. It’s just about love, which is what makes it so perfect. You don’t have to experience any certain things to connect to these lyrics in some way. The word love is never even spoken in the song, it's just a list of reasons you’d write to show your love for someone. It comes across in an innocent yet not naive way, that there’s so much love that the word doesn’t do enough, you have to explain where it comes from.
The sun’s been quite kind while I’ve wrote this song / It’s people like you that keep it turned on or Excuse me forgetting, but these things I do / You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue / The thing is, what I really mean / Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen are lines that go above and beyond to show as opposed to tell love. Berine could have opted out, gone for the simple, cheesy yet impactful lyrics but there was an effort to showcase something that is so often just told. The repetition of I hope you don’t mind I put into words how wonderful life is with you in the world may just be the most impactful piece of lyric ever penned in the name of love. The narrator says all he wished he could do, shower with luxury, sculpt the beauty, but all he can do is write. You can tell everyone this is your song, it may be quite simple but I hope you don’t mind. There’s snapshots of specific moments, yet it feels universal. Lou Reed penned Perfect Day about a day he experienced down to the exact details, yet it lives on as a song anybody could relate to, its message transcending the details it uses to explain it, just like Your Song.
While the song is often seen as a romantic piece, it shouldn’t be lost at how it could perfectly describe a platonic love as well. The gestures aren’t so romantic you wouldn’t do them for just about anyone you loved as opposed to a significant other. Bernie stands firm on his position as a storyteller, that not everything is about a certain person he knows or experience of his own and is mainly a work of fiction unless truly, deeply tied to him. It can’t be stated that Your Song is cut and dry about the friendship that was still in its infant stages between himself and Elton, but it could have a path back there. My gift is my song and this one's for you coming from a man who consistently disregards the talent his best friend places on him? This is coming from the same man who said he didn't mind how people viewed their relationship in the early days as long as they viewed it as "hands off, he's mine" in regards to Elton? That's a level of protectiveness from a friend one could only dream of possessing. It could just as easily be about two friends as it could be about two loves as it's story of love is that universal. It’s a blank slate in terms of pointing a direct meaning towards how it should be applied to a life, but so full of depth in the emotion packed within it.
A sister song, of sorts, to Your Song is We All Fall In Love Sometimes from Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy, a song [and album] about Elton and Bernie’s friendship. The song recounts the story of the duo writing Your Song, about their early days creating together to being on top of the world in just a few short years. Lines such as We wrote it and I played it / Something happened, it’s so strange this feeling or the titular line: Even your best friend says ‘don't you find, we all fall in love sometimes?’ reference their first hit, It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside is more obvious, but it feels the thesis of We All Fall In Love Sometimes is this same idea of innocent love, in its own case platonic, brotherly love. Elton says he can’t even perform the song without the urge to cry over how much he truly loves Bernie, how important their friendship is to him. It’s a song of genuine love, a love that can never be described with just the word and goes above and beyond to showcase how important this person is.
Love is the most common muse of popular songs, but I don’t think it’s ever been understood quite how it was in Your Song. It’s specific, yet broad enough to apply to anyone and whatever love they apply it to. Bernie Taupin is the unequivocal king of this type of writing, for even his most personal pieces can still cater to most without a line drawn directly back to him. It’ll never cease to amaze that a 19 year old kid not only gave what may just be the best written song of all time, but would only use that as a jumping point to even better writing.
Elton John performing Your Song in 1971:
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