{"id":973451,"date":"2019-11-12T09:17:49","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T16:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=909069"},"modified":"2019-11-12T09:17:49","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T16:17:49","slug":"elton-john-lyrics-head-to-auction-via-bernie-taupins-ex-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/elton-john-lyrics-head-to-auction-via-bernie-taupins-ex-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Elton John Lyrics Head to Auction via Bernie Taupin\u2019s Ex-Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bernie Taupin<\/a> auctioned off his extensive archive of original lyric manuscripts<\/a> last year, many crucial Elton John<\/a> songs were missing, including \u201cCandle In The Wind,\u201d \u201cBorder Song,\u201d \u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road,\u201d \u201cBennie and the Jets\u201d and \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright For Fighting.\u201d It turns out they\u2019d been in the possession of his ex-wife Maxine Taupin ever since they split 43 years ago. And on December 9th, she\u2019s auctioning them off at at Bonham\u2019s in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought after 40 years of having these fabulous treasures and enjoying them that it was time to have somebody else enjoy them,\u201d Maxine Taupin tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cAnd with the fever-pitch interest in Elton, it\u2019s really the year of Elton John with the movie Rocketman<\/em> and with his autobiography Me.<\/em> I figured this was a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to predict how high bids will go, but the auction house has set the following estimates: \u201cBorder Song\u201d ($150,000 to $250,000), \u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road\u201d ($150,000 to $250,000), \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright For Fighting\u201d ($100,000 to $200,000), \u201cBennie and the Jets\u201d ($80,000 to $120,000) and \u201cBorder Song\u201d ($30,000 to $50,000). (She also has the \u201cYour Song\u201d manuscript, but the auction house already has an \u201caggressive pre-sale offer\u201d and will probably sell it privately.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maxine doesn\u2019t recall how she wound up holding onto these items after separating from Bernie. \u201cYou don\u2019t just normally sit in a room and divide things up, but it might have happened like that,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t really remember the moment. But some of them were framed on a wall in my home and other ones were in a bank vault, perfectly preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lyrics are handwritten and typed on blank typing paper and reveal many discarded lyric fragments. For example, \u201cCandle In The Wind\u201d originally began with \u201cGoodbye Marilyn Monroe\u201d before he settled on \u201cGoodbye Norma Jean.\u201d \u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road\u201d features the crossed-out line \u201cYou can\u2019t plant a tree in a penthouse\u201d and \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright For Fighting\u201d has a unused section with the lines \u201ccause we get us a draft and kick up stink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most intriguingly, \u201cBorder Song\u201d has an entire verse that didn\u2019t make the cut: \u201cMy God, I\u2019m sick of this motel\/please give me the key to this coal hole\/there\u2019s a man down here in a mousetrap\/praying that he doesn\u2019t see your black cat.\u201d The lines were crossed out and replaced by the \u201cHoly Moses, let us live in peace\u201d verse from the finished song. That part was written in John\u2019s handwriting, though it\u2019s unclear if he added them in himself or if they came from Taupin.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cBorder Song\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Maxine began dating Bernie in 1970 and they married the following year. She inspired some of his greatest love songs, including \u201cTiny Dancer.\u201d The song refers to her as the \u201cseamstress\u201d in the band because she sewed tourist patches on Elton\u2019s denim outfits while on tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHearing it today takes me back to the first moment that Elton and Bernie played it for me at Trident Studios,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a big surprise to me because Bernie did not show me the lyrics when he wrote them like he usually did with other songs. They played it for me in the studio with Elton on one side of me and Bernie on the other. I was totally blown away when Bernie said, \u2018I wrote this for you.\u2019 It\u2019s a moment I\u2019ll never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of years later, she was hanging out with Bernie when Elton walked through the door after a long tour. \u201cHe was tired and was talking about the tour and how difficult and challenging and wonderful it was,\u201d she said. \u201cI just rolled my eyes and said, \u2018Oh my God, the bitch is back.\u2019 We all started laughing and that is how that phrase was coined.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also suggested he write songs called \u201cHarmony\u201d and \u201cLove Lies Bleeding,\u201d which he wound up doing for 1973\u2019s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road<\/em>. The latter title was taken from the name of a flower she came across in a plant catalog.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bernie wrote the lyrics by himself, but coming up with the tiles of song as famous and distinct as \u201cThe Bitch is Back\u201d and \u201cLove Lies Bleeding\u201d might have earned her a piece of the publishing if she ever pressed the matter legally. \u201cI would never, ever do anything like that,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is totally not my style. Coming up with an idea for something and sharing it and telling someone that I loved to use it, that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s enough. It\u2019s enough that he thought it was a great title. I didn\u2019t invent it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maxine hasn\u2019t spoken to Bernie in many years and she last saw Elton in concert when he played Radio City Music Hall in 2004. She enjoyed seeing Rocketman<\/em>, but she feels the movie didn\u2019t quite capture the guy she knew in the early 1970s. \u201cMy experience with Bernie and Elton in what I call \u2018the foundational years\u2019 were very different than what was represented in that film,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was so much joy and laughter and the excitement of success and notoriety. Elton is so generous and he has an unbelievable sense of humor and love. He had love for his mother and John Reid and a lot of that love wasn\u2019t represented in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright for Fighting\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She\u2019s kept a low profile since the 1976 separation, rarely giving interviews or discussing her past. (Her silence led to some funny misconceptions about her life, like Wikipedia listing \u201cseamstress\u201d first among her three supposed occupations.) And even though she\u2019s heard \u201cTiny Dancer\u201d countless times, it still brings a smile to her face. Recently, a good friend sent her a video of his 21-year-old niece singing it when asked to name her favorite song, having no idea it was about her. \u201cIt\u2019s those kind of things that make that song important to me,\u201d she says. \u201cSomeone that is so much younger loves that song. It means something important to them. It\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bernie Taupin auctioned off his extensive archive of original lyric manuscripts last year, many crucial Elton John songs were missing, including \u201cCandle In The Wind,\u201d \u201cBorder Song,\u201d \u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road,\u201d \u201cBennie and the Jets\u201d and \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright For Fighting.\u201d It turns out they\u2019d been in the possession of his ex-wife Maxine Taupin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-973451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 09:44:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}