你的歌 (1970)

"Your Song" is a song written by British musician Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, and performed by John. It was John's first international Top 10 chart single.

"Your Song" was first released by American rock band Three Dog Night in March 1970 as an album track on It Ain't Easy. John was an opening act for the band at the time and allowed them to record it. They did not release it as a single as they wanted to let John, then an upcoming artist, have a go with it. John's version was recorded at Trident Studios in London in January 1970 and appeared in April as the first cut on his self-titled second studio album. Following "Border Song" as the first album single, "Your Song" was released in the United States in October 1970 as the B-side to "Take Me to the Pilot". Both sides received airplay, but "Your Song" was preferred by disc jockeys and replaced "Take Me to the Pilot" as the A-side, eventually making it to number eight on the Billboard chart. The song also peaked at number seven on the UK singles chart, as well as charting in the top 10 in several other countries.

In 1998, "Your Song" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, the song was placed at number 136 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", 137 in its 2010 list, and 202 in its 2021 list. The song is listed among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. A demo version was included in John's 1990 box set album To Be Continued. In 2017, the song was voted by the British public as The Nation's Favourite Elton John Song in a UK-wide poll for ITV.

The song has been covered by a number of artists, including Rod Stewart, Lady Gaga and Ellie Goulding. The song was also covered by Ewan McGregor and opera singer Alessandro Safina in the 2001 musical film Moulin Rouge! and by Taron Egerton in the 2019 film Rocketman. In 2024, the song was certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Composition and inspiration

One widespread story is that Bernie Taupin wrote the song's lyrics after breakfast one morning on the roof of 20 Denmark Street, London, where John worked for a music publishing firm as an office boy, hence the line "I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss." However, Taupin has denied this, pointing out that John had stopped working there by the time they met, "I scribbled the lyric down on a lined notepad at the kitchen table of Elton's mother's apartment in the London suburb of Northwood Hills, breakfast time sometime in 1969. That’s it. Plain and simple."

The instrumental focus is on John's Leon Russell-influenced piano work, along with acoustic guitar, Paul Buckmaster's string accompaniment, and a shuffling rhythm section.

At times the self-deprecating narrator stumbles to get out his feelings, which despite being a melodramatic device, AllMusic calls "effective and sweet": According to a journal entry on John's official website, he wrote the music for "Your Song" on Monday, 27 October 1969.

"Your Song" was the inspiration for the song "We All Fall in Love Sometimes" on John's 1975 album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

The song is performed in the key of E-flat major.

Reception

"Your Song" was praised by critics upon its release and in subsequent years, and is widely regarded as one of John's greatest songs. Writing in NME on its release, Derek Johnson wrote, "The song itself is glowing and strangely haunting, the scoring is smooth and delicate and the performance is symptomatic of a new era in pop idols." Bill Janovitz from AllMusic described it as a "near-perfect song".

In a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone, John Lennon recalled,

I remember hearing Elton John's 'Your Song', heard it in America—it was one of Elton's first big hits—and remember thinking, 'Great, that's the first new thing that's happened since we (The Beatles) happened.' It was a step forward. There was something about his vocal that was an improvement on all of the English vocals until then. I was pleased with it."

John Mendelsohn from Rolling Stone called the song a "pretty McCartney-esque ballad". In the 2019 book Elton John: Every Album, Every Song – 1969–1979, author Peter Kearns made the following quote in reference to "Your Song". "The words securely insulate themselves against possible criticism by admitting their ineptitude for the task at hand".

In 2018, The Guardian ranked the song number four on their list of the 50 greatest Elton John songs, and in 2022, Billboard ranked the song number two on their list of the 75 greatest Elton John songs.