Bernie Taupin shares how he dealt with songwriting partner Elton John being ‘horrible and difficult’ on tour
Bernie Taupin shares how he dealt with songwriting partner Elton John being ‘horrible and difficult’ on tour
Wesley StenzelTue, October 27, 2026 at 12:14 AM UTC
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Elton John and Bernie Taupin in New York City on Nov. 3, 2023Credit: Kevin Mazur/GettyKey points -
Bernie Taupin has been Elton John’s songwriting partner for six decades.
Taupin said in a new interview that John was sometimes “horrible and difficult” on tour.
Taupin recently released a solo album, The Sea Has No Mercy.
Bernie Taupin and Elton John have shared six decades of musical success — but they didn’t always get along.
The lyricist behind the vast majority of John’s songs reflected on their partnership in a new interview with The Times, and he didn’t shy away from a question about John’s “diva moments” on tour.
“When we went on the road, and he could be really horrible and difficult, I would just roll my eyes because if you intervened it would make him worse,” Taupin revealed. “And he knew about which outfits made me want to kill him, like when [in New York in 1980] he dressed as Donald Duck in Central Park.”
The majority of Taupin’s remarks about John, however, were extremely positive, including his reflections on the duo’s early partnership. “He said I was the brother he never had,” Taupin recalled. “When I came to London people treated me like I was an English hillbilly, but Elton always saw the best in me.”
Bernie Taupin and Elton John circa 1971Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Taupin and John’s first collaboration came as they were hired to pen songs for other musicians.
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“We were signed to write material for middle-of-the-road singers like Cilla Black and Engelbert Humperdinck and we were terrible at it,” Taupin said. “We would be in [publishing company] Dick James Music, where all these old guys, relics from the music hall days, would be in little cubicles, smoking and talking, and I had no musicality whatsoever. I just whatever style was fashionable at the time and stole the stories from books I read.”
The songwriter admitted that he had no clue what he was doing when he first began. “You have to understand, I was flying by the seat of my pants,” Taupin said. “I had no idea how to write a song. I was just trying to get out of my rut in the north of England, because I left school at 15 and wasn’t qualified for anything beyond manual labour. I still wake up and think, I dodged a bullet there.”
John retired from touring in 2023, and Taupin is unsure if they’ll write more songs together in the future. “You never can tell, and it’s a bit late in the day, but never say never,” he mused. “He calls me pretty regularly, and he seems to know what I’m doing even before I do. When I told him I was doing a keynote address in Nashville, he said, ‘Oh yes, with Brandi [Carlile].’ I’d only just found out myself.”
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Taupin recently released his fourth solo album, The Sea Has No Mercy. “I’m 76. A lot of the album is about an old guy pissed off at life,” he explained. “But there’s a lot of good things in there too.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
