47 Tiny Dancer

ELTON JOHN 1972

The “seamstress for the band” of the lyrics was Maxine Feibelman, then the wife of lyricist Bernie Taupin. “I had been into ballet as a little girl and sewed patches on Elton’s jackets and jeans,” she said. When Taupin and Elton John had arrived in L.A. in late 1970, Feibelman so beguiled Taupin that he wrote the rapturous “Tiny Dancer” for her. John’s skyrocketing melody got a little help from Paul Buckmaster’s strings and Rick Wakeman, soon to join prog-rockers Yes, who played organ. Nearly 30 years later, Almost Famous revived the song, which wasn’t a hit in 1972, failing to reach the Top 40 in its truncated radio edit.