The Story Behind the Song: Tiny Dancer (Elton John)

Today on The Story Behind the Song, we look behind Elton John's award winning ‘Tiny Dancer’ (1972).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me tell you a story All the.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Time clearsy and releases the story behind the song.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Today's story behind the song song is Tiny Dancer Elton
John and Bernie Taupin. Was originally released on Elton's late
nineteen seventy one album mad Man Across the Water, and
then later produced and released as a single in nineteen
seventy two.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
So what or is it? Who is the inspiration?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
This's all lyrics here, and you know, I just sit
through them. There's one year that I've sort of done
the other day. Well, Tiny Dancer, which is about Bernie's girlfriend,
just sort of felt like I looked for all there
is and that was the one I fancied writing, mainly
because I knew Bernie would like me to do this
one because it's about his girlfriend. You look at it
the words blue Jean, baby, la lady, seemstress of the bad,

(00:48):
pretty eyed pirate smile, you marry a music man, ballerina.
As soon as you have the word ballerina, you know
it's not going to be fast. It's got to be
sort of gentle, and it's sort of quite slow. I
just sort of ran it through and put two verses
together then and midle, then a chorus and then back
to the verse. Sort of thing is it's it happens
very quickly, is sort of starts off blue Jean Baby early.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Seamstress for the bab Is it cool to hear a
muse I've deconstructed and recreate.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
It like that?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, the girlfriend in question was actually Bernie's wife at
the time. Her name was Maxine Feebleman, and just back
in twenty nineteen, Feebleman said, I knew that song was
about me. I had been into ballet as a little
girl and sold patches on Elton's jackets and jeans.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
So that's what the seamstress for the band bit.

Speaker 6 (01:42):
That's it's about where the reference going from now.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
It's not a short song.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Indeed, due to the song's lengthy runtime of six minutes
twelve seconds, A tiny Danswer was initially a bit of
a non starter as a single in the US, especially
reaching only number forty one on their Pop chart, and
wasn't even released as a single in the UK.

Speaker 6 (01:59):
Because it's the sixties.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah, very well, exactly. She wrapped it up in maybe
ninety seconds. Yeah, it fared better here in Australia. It
peaked at number thirteen. Here.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It was ranked number forty seven on the twenty twenty
one Rolling Stone list of the five hundred Greatest Songs
of All Time, and in twenty twenty was inducted into
the Grammy Hall of Fame. Yeah, well, been a big one,
you know, in sort of various types of media.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Of course, there's a great scene and almost famous whether
or singing out of the bus wasn't friends Phoebe.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Thought that the song was called hold Me Closer, Tony
yn Tony Danzer.

Speaker 6 (02:36):
Yeah, it was a big star and Elton and Bernie.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
Let's be honest, it's been such a unique partnership to
have someone on one side of the world because Bernie
Tchebman was obsessed with living in the States and pretending
he was a cowboy, writing lyrics and sending them over
to Elton and elt and going in there the tea.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Is this what made it work? It is incredible.

Speaker 6 (02:53):
Yeah, bit of Elton and then Bernie having your chat
about the song.

Speaker 7 (02:55):
For some reason, the magic of our relationship is that
when he gives me that lyric, a movie in my
head and I don't think about it very much and
I just go ahead. And that's never changed. From the
word go, from the first lyric he ever gave me,
Tiny Does. It was just a breeze because you know,
we were both infatuated with it here in Los Angeles,
so it meant a great deal to write a song
about l A.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah. I think, like Elton said, it's a composite of
a lot of different ideas and a lot of different
people and all the things that we saw on the street.
It was like coming from black and white to color
and you know, the people, the people were so free,
they were much the girls were so much freer than
you know, what we were used to in England. You know,
there was there was a light around everything and the

(03:38):
whole thing was inspiring.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
Of the word free. A lot of freer. Yeah, they're like,
excuse me, it's hilarious.