The mystery of the missing verse from Elton John track ‘Daniel’
A lot of music by Elton John is indebted to the partnership with Bernie Taupin. While John’s piano prowess crafted beautiful melodies, Taupin’s gift for painting vivid imagery through lyrics was unmatched among singer-songwriters of the time. However, although Taupin occasionally had lyrics that missed the mark, he believed that one lesser-known song resonated perfectly with John’s musical composition.
Despite the lyricist and John emerging from contrasting backgrounds, they swiftly found a musical kinship when they first collaborated, seamlessly assembling the perfect song without overthinking it. Unlike the typical exchange between artists, John was recognised for taking Taupin’s lyrical verses and crafting the music to complement those words.
When it came to crafting ‘Daniel’, Taupin wrote the lyrics one morning at the recording studio and then carried them downstairs to John. In a swift turn of events, John composed the music, and the band recorded the track that very day, completing the process in merely three takes. The lyrics, Taupin once explained, were initially inspired by soldiers returning from war.
“The story was about a guy that went back to a small town in Texas, returning from the Vietnam War,” he explained in the Two Rooms tribute project. “They’d lauded him when he came home and treated him like a hero. But he just wanted to go home, go back to the farm, and try to get back to the life that he’d led before. I wanted to write something that was sympathetic to the people that came home.”
However, when it came to writing the music for the song, it was John who took the liberty of removing the final verse due to the song’s overly long run-time. The verse that got removed revealed Daniel as a Vietnam veteran who, upon returning to the farm after the war, struggled to find peace and chose to depart for Spain. With the removal of the final verse, the song’s narrative shifted into a more vague story of two brothers parting ways.
Although some writers may have taken offence at any sort of lyrical erasure, Taupin noted that losing the verse wasn’t a particularly significant concern for him. “We had that whole thing about the missing verse that everybody seems to believe explained the true meaning of the song,” he said. “I think that’s just an urban legend. It didn’t really explain anything. Sure, it was cut out. But that used to happen all the time with our songs. I would often overwrite, and Elton felt it necessary to edit somewhat. But believe me, it didn’t say anything that the rest of the song didn’t say.”
Despite the missing final verse, the song still holds as much power as ever, showcasing Taupin’s prowess as a songwriter. What’s more, despite some reluctance from the label towards releasing the song as a single, ‘Daniel’ went on to reach succeed in the charts and became a major commercial triumph.