From the early 70ies on Elton John has been a star of international fame.
Along with hits like Crocodile Rock, I'm Still Standing, Nikita or Sacrifice
his place in history of popular music was secured. But there has always been
one thing missing for him: A place in the Guiness book of records
What had already become reality for stars like The Beatles, Madonna or Michael Jackson already
years ago just wasn't to be for Reginald Kenneth Dwight (as the star is called when he's at home).
This should suddenly change by 1997 within less than 2 months:
On the August 31 Diana, princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris.
Elton John was ready to play a song for her at her funeral on thge 6th of september.
Elton John and his co-writer Bernie Taupin have already been capable of bringing new
smashing hits to the public many times.
But this time their creativity seemed to have been forgotten on their last holiday.
When the day of the funeral dawned and Elton John sat down behind the piano the notes
sounded quite familiar to any Elton John fan.
"Isn't that...But what the hell does a song for Marily Monroe do at Diana's funeral???"
Well, the solution is as simple as the idea:
The songwriting team took their song Candle In The Wind from 19 , which was originally
penned for Marily Monroe to change a few lines and to further change the dedication from Marilyn to Diana.
Great for an amateur songwriter, not so much for a professional songwriting team
like Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Anyway, as soon as the the song was realeased on CD
the crowd inside and outside of England couldn't be kept from taking the record stores by storm
to purchase the "new song" by Elton John.
But before too long the star got to the top of almost all European charts and has stayed there for
several weeks. And in october the message arrived that there were sold some 31,7 million records of
Candle In The Wind '97. So Elton John broke Bing Crosby's record and his song's
White Christmas (by october 1997: about 30 million records sold worldwide) and so had created
the best selling song of all time.
The good quality of the song itself can hardly be responsible for the overwhelming success
because the song has been existing for almost years not at all reaching
the record sales the new version does now. This shows how easy it is for a superstar to get an entry
for the Guiness book of records: Obviously it doesn't take an event which moves
the world as the reason for revitalising a piece of art made a long time ago. And suddenly
the big boom arrives. Does that inspire you to go into the show biz scene yourself?
The lyrics to Candle In The Wind '97
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