Elton John’s First Draft Of “Your Song” Sells For $237,000

Along With Other Manuscripts

The first handwritten draft of the lyrics to Elton John’s 1970 classic hit “Your Song” penned by longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin just sold for $237,000 at an auction. Maxine Taupin, who was Bernie’s wife from 1971 to 1976 and also the inspiration for “Tiny Dancer”, put up a couple of manuscripts for auction at Bonham’s in Los Angeles.

The lyric sheets for “The Border Song” fetched for $31,325 while “Bennie and the Jets” with an entire verse that didn’t make it to the final cut of the track sold for $87,575. The other drafts (“Candle in the Wind,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”) were not sold.

Maxine stated, “When Bernie had completed an album’s worth of lyrics, we would pay Elton a visit. When I heard the finished songs, I was instantly transported to that magical place these two creative forces have been taking us all for so many years.”

Maxine couldn’t recall how she ended up with the documents over forty years after their divorce. She told Rolling Stone, “You don’t just normally sit in a room and divide things up, but it might have happened like that. I don’t really remember the moment. But some of them were framed on a wall in my home and other ones were in a bank vault, perfectly preserved.”