Your Song

Elton John released Your Song in 1970 on his self titled second album, the record that broke him in Britain and America. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyric one morning at breakfast, on a notepad at the kitchen table of the Northwood Hills flat belonging to Elton's mother. Couples choose it because the words are deliberately modest, a songwriter admitting he is not very good at this and offering the song anyway, and that lack of polish feels honest on a wedding day. In the United States it was first issued as a B side, and radio DJs flipped the record over until the label gave in.