- Elton John's songwriting partner Bernie Taupin said he wrote "Your Song" in 10 minutes.
- "Your Song" was John's breakthrough single and is still regarded as one of his best songs.
Elton John's longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, who is credited with cowriting John's breakthrough 1970 hit "Your Song," says he came up with the song's lyrics in just 10 minutes.
Taupin writes in his recently published memoir, "Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me," that he wrote the lyrics while having breakfast at John's mother's house.
"On Monday morning, October 27, 1969, Sheila fried up a couple of eggs, slotted in some toast, and brewed three cups of tea while I wrote something called 'Your Song,'" Taupin writes.
"I don't think it took me more than 10 minutes, but its eventual melodic accompaniment and release would traverse decades, becoming our signature song and, in the minds of many, our first bona fide classic," Taupin continues.
Released in October 1970, "Your Song" propelled John to fame, scoring him his first chart hits in both the United Kingdom, where it reached No. 7 on the singles chart, and the United States, where it peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song is still widely regarded as one of John's best ever.
"With 'Your Song,' we turned a corner, setting us on a path of heightened awareness of our capabilities and a more mature approach that eventually morphed into a style that was completely our own," writes Taupin in his memoir.
Taupin would go on to cowrite some of John's other biggest hits, including "Bennie and the Jets" and "Candle in the Wind."
Elsewhere in his memoir, Taupin claims that John's ex-fiancée, Linda Hannon, lied about being pregnant when the singer told her he was leaving her.
John met Hannon in 1968 when he was 21, and they quickly got engaged. Two years later, however, just weeks before their proposed wedding, John called things off.
Recalling the day after John left Hannon, Taupin writes: "Linda lobbed several threatening bombs. She was pregnant, would inject air bubbles into her veins, and I'm sure blamed the entire debacle on me."
According to the National Library of Medicine, intentionally injecting air bubbles into the veins can result in a venous air embolism, which, according to Medical News Today, can be fatal.
"Of course, it was all fabricated as they'd never had sex, we weren't junkies, and I was blameless, just sitting on the curb watching the whole train wreck happen," Taupin writes.