Bennie and the Jets

Taupin said he saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band fronted by an androgynous woman, who looks like something out of a Helmut Newton photograph. The song was recorded with Dudgeon at the Château d'Hérouville, with John on piano, Farfisa organ and vocals, Davey Johnstone on acoustic guitar, Dee Murray on bass and Nigel Olsson on drums. Though it sounds live, it was a studio take with live sound effects added. John had hit the opening piano chord exactly one bar early, and Dudgeon decided to "fake-live this". He mixed in sounds from John's 1972 concert at the Royal Festival Hall, a Jimi Hendrix performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, whistles from a Vancouver show, and added handclaps and shouts.

John was set against issuing it as a single and thought it would fail. Then CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, started playing it heavily and it became number one in the Detroit market, and other stations followed. It reached number one on the US singles chart in 1974, and it was John's first top 40 hit on Billboard's Hot Soul Singles chart, where it peaked at 15. He played it on Soul Train on 17 May 1975. Rolling Stone ranks it 371 among the 500 greatest songs.

On stage John rarely plays the studio arrangement. He has worked in phrases from Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and closed with the five-note figure from John Williams's score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Long piano solos survive from Central Park in 1980, Wembley on 30 June 1984 and Sydney on 14 December 1986. He also played it at Live Aid.