Bernie Taupin shares how his 50-year music partnership and friendship with Elton John works

The Rocketman film shone a light on the intense friendship between Elton John and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. Now he reveals how they’ve managed to work together for 50 years.

Exclusive: Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s hit-making partnership has famously thrived for five decades by not being in the same room.

The pair have spent plenty of time in close quarters this year as they joined forces to launch the musical biopic Rocketman.

The film shone a rare spotlight on the “close and intense relationship” which has bonded the men since John was given a collection of Taupin’s poems to compose music to back in 1967.

New John/Taupin compositions are expected to be written during the Rocketman’s farewell tour in Australia. Picture: Supplied.

Taupin, who has relished relative anonymity as a lyricist and visual artist compared to John’s superstardom, said before they embarked on the “madness of this promotional battlefield,” he and his wife Heather joined his creative partner and his husband David Furnish at their home in Nice.

The respective couples enjoy that easy kind of relationship which comes from a shared history of more than 50 years.

Heather and Bernie Taupin attend the US Premiere of Rocketman in New York. Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images.

“When we get together, it’s like any other couple who are friends and have a history; you fall into conversation very easily,” Taupin says.

“And those conversations are the same as old friends have. It’s about family — and in our case — very much about music.

“We have different tastes; his tastes are very much on the pulse of what’s current as opposed to me who is a blues, classic country sort of guy. It’s always delightful.”

As Johns and Taupin joined forces with Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell who played the songwriters for the Rocketman promotional campaign, Kidd and Furnish’s relationship as their respective managers also kicked into high gear.

The lyricist revealed their spouses have more contact with each other than the musical protagonists.

Elton and Bernie have famously never written a song in the same room together. Picture: Supplied

“The funny thing too, which is really unusual, is David takes care of Elton’s management and Heather takes care of mine, so they are always discussing business,” he says.

“It’s really all in the family, there’s a lot of trust and genuine affection.”

More than three months after walking the red carpets at Cannes and London, Taupin is still talking up the film for its debut on streaming services and home release.

He and John are extraordinarily proud of the film, and Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell, who brought one of the most successful and celebrated songwriting partnerships in pop music history to life on the big screen.

Since they both answered the 1967 advertisement seeking songwriting talent placed by Liberty Records in the UK music paper New Musical Express, their unique collaboration has generated dozens of songs to the modern pop songbook.

Taupin and John were thrown together by fate after answering the same ad looking for songwriters. Picture: Michael Putland/Getty Images.

From Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to the latest offering I’m Gonna (Love Me Again) for the Rocketman film, their discography has sold more than 300 million albums.

The theatrical reinventions of many of their hits for the film in conjunction with Giles Martin, son of famed Beatles producer George Martin, prompted much speculation Rocketman might be headed for a Broadway adaptation in the future.

It isn’t an unlikely prospect. John is currently on his farewell world tour and has been entrenched in the musical theatre world since the 1990s, composing for the Broadway adaptation of the Lion King and Aida and then Billy Elliot.

But Taupin is not on board for what he fears some fans might see as an “over-indulgence”.

“I think that is possibly just too much; you can take it too far,” he says.

“It’s certainly not on my radar by any means and I have heard no discussions of it.

“You have to be careful not to overindulge, for people to see it as a cash cow and that’s the last thing in the world I would want to be involved. I’m not made of that material.”

Taupin was a big supporter of the Rocketman biopic but doesn’t see it going to Broadway. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images.

Their latest track, (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again, sung jointly by John and Egerton for the film, was composed in exactly the same fashion that has served the songwriters well for five decades.

Taupin hopes the song — as well as the movie — gets its notice come the Grammys and film awards seasons in early 2020.

While some songwriters like to shake up their process to see if a new musical direction can be forged, Taupin said he and John remain wedded to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage.

“I have never enjoyed the process of having to write to an existing melody and if I ever write with anybody else, I always make that clear,” he says.

“I feel it restricts me and doesn’t allow me to stretch out and tell stories, I feel hemmed in by melody.”

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Lyrics are his side hustle now with Taupin devoted to his multimedia art projects. Picture: Barry King/Getty Images.

Taupin feels equally hemmed in by the concept of a love song, preferring to sculpt a narrative as he has from the early days such as the 1975 autobiographical album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy through to 2013’s The Diving Board.

The lyricist believes that formula is responsible for the longevity of their catalogue, its multi-generational appeal and influence on pop culture and songwriters.

“Our music has always been varied stylistically and if you look at our so-called greatest hits, songs like Benny and the Jets, Rocketman, Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting, they are all over the place genre-wise and lyrically,” he says.

“I think people have never been able to pin us down and I think that’s because Elton and I have incredibly varied musical tastes. The fan in us has always helped to bring out a musical smorgasbord.”

Elton John and Bernie Taupin launch Rocketman at the Cannes International Film Festival. Photo: Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

Even as he reveals he is working on lyrics for John to compose new songs to during his four month stint in Australia for the Farewell Yellow Brick Road world tour, Taupin’s creative energies remain focused on his art.

He has been exhibiting his multi-media works in galleries for the past decade, crafting his works influenced by his love of Americana and music in a barn studio on his Santa Barbara property.

“Art is my day-to-day go-to game; writing songs has become my side project because I do it very, very rarely now — Elton and I make an album maybe every four years if that now,” he says.

“If I’m at home, I’m in the studio 24/7 and that’s where I am happiest.

“I take my art very, very seriously, I am not a quintessential token celebrity artist and I have managed to forge an exciting career as an artist shown in serious galleries. I’m very proud of that.”

Rocketman is available now on home release. The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour opens in Perth on November 30 and concludes at Bankwest Stadium, Sydney on March 7, all dates and ticketing details via chuggentertainment.com

Originally published as Bernie Taupin shares how his 50-year music partnership and friendship with Elton John works