Your Song

Three Dog Night released it first, in March 1970 as an album track on It Ain't Easy. John was their opening act and let them record it, and they did not issue it as a single so that he could have a go. John's own version was recorded at Trident Studios in London in January 1970 and became the first cut on his self-titled second album. In the US it came out in October 1970 as the B-side of "Take Me to the Pilot", but disc jockeys preferred it and it took over as the A-side, reaching number eight on Billboard. It reached number seven in Britain.

A popular story has Taupin writing the words on the roof of 20 Denmark Street. Taupin has denied it. He said he wrote the lyric on a lined notepad at the kitchen table of John's mother's flat in Northwood Hills at breakfast time in 1969. John's journal on his official website says he wrote the music on Monday 27 October 1969. The recording has John on piano and vocals with a string arrangement by Paul Buckmaster, plus acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, double bass and drums.

NME's Derek Johnson called it "glowing and strangely haunting" on its release. John Lennon later said in a 1975 Rolling Stone interview that he thought it was the first new thing since the Beatles. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and is on the Rock Hall's list of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. John re-recorded it as a duet with Alessandro Safina for Sport Relief in 2002, and that version reached number four in the UK. He played it solo at the Music for Montserrat concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 15 September 1997 and opened the Concert for Diana at Wembley on 1 July 2007 with it.