In 1974, Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” became one of his biggest songs. Eighteen years later, it became an even bigger hit. That makes it hard to believe the music legend once toyed with giving the song away.
Written by John and his musical partner Bernie Taupin for the album Caribou, the power ballad features a sweeping pop-rock arrangement paired with lyrics about the end of a relationship—with the sun serving as a metaphor for hope.
“I like it to be a bit more interesting than a good old ‘I love you, you love me, my heart will break if you leave me,’” Taupin once told Esquire in an interview. “Throw in a curveball. ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight.’ ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.’ Put a dark twist on them, you know.”
“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” features some extra star power with Beach Boys members Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston and Captain & Tennille singer Toni Tennille providing backup vocals. Tennille’s husband, Daryl Dragon, arranged the background vocals.
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Still, even with all of that, John wasn’t sure about the song at first. According to a post on his official website, the music legend became frustrated with his own vocals on the track and gave up, telling producer Gus Dudgeon to scrap the song.
In the book Sir Elton: The Definitive Biography, author Philip Norman revealed that John listened to playback of the song and said, “That’s a load of crap. You can send it to Engelbert Humperdinck, and if he doesn’t like it, you can give it to Lulu as a demo.”
Dudgeon kept the song on the album, and it ultimately reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1974. But that was just the beginning of the song’s rise on the charts.
In 1991, John and singer George Michael performed a live duet of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” at Wembley Stadium in London. Michael wanted to release the performance as a charity single, but John wasn’t so sure about the idea.
According to his website, John left a message on Michael’s answering machine telling him he didn’t feel the recording was good enough to be issued as a single. John was wrong, and the duet version soared up the charts to No. 1 in February 1991.
John later included the song on his album Duets.
“I wrote down a list of the people I would love to sing with . . . and most of them came through,” he told The Los Angeles Times of the duets he recorded with Stevie Wonder, Don Henley, Tammy Wynette, Gladys Knight and more. “The album ends with the George Michael duet on ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,’ which hasn’t been on an album before.”
Decades later, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” remains one of Elton John’s most powerful hits, a song he nearly disregarded twice but went on to become an enduring classic.
Related: 1975 No. 1 Hit, Written for a Friend, Remains an Unexpected Patriotic Anthem 51 Years Later
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