Original handwritten lyrics for the Elton John song "Candle in the Wind"

Original handwritten lyrics for the Elton John song "Candle in the Wind"
TAUPIN, BERNIE. Autograph Manuscript Initialed twice ("BJT"), 2 pp, 4to, [Chateau D'Hérouville, France], January 14, 1973, here titled "Marilyn Monroe" in block print, written in blue and green ink on blank typing paper, small paper clip rust stain to upper left corner, otherwise very fine.
Provenance: Collection of Maxine Taupin.

ORIGINAL FIRST DRAFT OF THE MOST POIGNANT OF ELTON JOHN'S HIT SINGLES.

Written in 1973 and included on the Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road album, "Candle in the Wind" memorialized the brief, tragic life of Marilyn Monroe and by extension, other lives cut short by the weight of fame. In a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, Bernie Taupin said that Marilyn was "just a metaphor for fame and dying young ... The song could have easily have been about Montgomery Clift or James Dean or even Jim Morrison. But it seemed that she had a sympathetic bent to her, so I used her. And she was female, and that was more vulnerable. But it was really about the excesses of celebrity, the early demise of celebrities...."

This draft, written in blue and green ink, is a palimpsest, revealing Taupin's careful wordcraft (and his famously inconsistent spelling):

Goodbye Marilyn Monroe Norma Jean. /
though I never knew you at all /
You had the grace to hold yourselves /
While those around you crawled,
But they crawled out of the woodwork /
And whispered into your brain
They sent you on a treadmill /
And they made you change your name.
And you where forced to it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind /
never nowing who to cling to / when the rain set in /
And I should would have like to have known you /
but I was just a kid /
Your candel burned out long before
Your legend ever did.

Lonliness was a part of life the toughest role
That you ever played Hollywood made you play
You could have been a superstar
but you preferred to hid away
but Hollywood created a superstar
And pain was the price you payed
So goodby again Norma Jean
from a young man in the 22nd row
Who sees you as more than something sexual
More than just a Marilyn Monroe

Page 2 continues in blue ink with 13 lines that are either reworkings of page one or lines that did not make it into the final version:

You could have been a superstar or
bigger than them all
and in my eyes, well you still are.

Goodbye Marilyn Monroe
thought I never knew you at all
you had the grace to hold yourselves
above the ones that crawled
but they crawled out the woodwork
And whispered in your brain

But you where living your life, like a candle in the wind

Marilyn

They sent you on the tread mill
to factory that changes your name

Finally Bernie lands on the chilling conclusion of the last stanza:

Pressmen, newsmen hounding you
even when you died
the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
was that you were Marilyn was found in the nude

Candle in the Wind reached #11 on the UK charts when it was initially released, though it never cracked the top 40 in the US on its first time out. In 1986 a live version of the song, stripped down to just piano and synthesizers, was recorded in Sydney, Australia and released. The song's lament of a young life cut short took on new meaning at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and the song reached #6 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

In 1997, Bernie Taupin reworked the lyrics for "Candle in the Wind" for Elton John's performance at the funeral of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. This version, titled "Goodbye England's Rose," again captured the angst and grief of a world grappling with the untimely death of a beloved icon. The 1997 edition hit #1 on the charts in the US and the UK and today the song is one of the best-selling pop songs of all time.