His recollections of five ‘Goodbye’ tracks

Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding: The 11-minute progrock opener, which got wide radio play despite its length, links two songs. “We thought it would be great to have an overture before Funeral. Our engineer David Hentschel used an ARP (synthesizer), which looks like the telephone exchange Lily Tomlin used in Laugh-In.” Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting: The first single, a scrappy rocker, was covered by Queen and The Who. “I did the vocal lying on the floor and put the piano on afterward, which is extremely rare. That’s the only way I could get the performance I wanted.”

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The ballad inspired the cover art of John stepping from a generic street into an Oz-like fantasy. “It seemed like a great title for the album,” John says. “It was like saying goodbye to a loss of innocence.”

Candle in the Wind: John felt certain this poignant ode to Marilyn Monroe would be a smash. And it was, years later. “Candle has an odd history,” he says. “It wasn’t a hit in America until we did a live album in Australia” in 1987. The retooled 1997 version for Princess Diana became the biggest pop single in history, selling 33 million copies.

Bennie and the Jets: When label executives proposed releasing Bennie, John balked. “It’s not your usual pop song. They changed my mind by telling me it was a No. 1 black record in Detroit. Being a white boy in England, I was very excited.” The song also landed John on Soul Train.