Credit: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi
Wed 27 May 2026 11:40, UK
In 2023, when Elton John took to the stage at Glastonbury, it felt like an extensive career highlight reel, as the crowd and millions of people watching at home were reminded just how many hits the Rocketman has delivered.
The collection varies from upbeat numbers to much more meaningful and slower tunes, with far too many to condense into one set, much to the relief of Elton John himself.
Part of what has kept Elton John’s catalogue so enduring is its sheer variety. Few artists have managed to balance flamboyant pop spectacle with deeply emotional songwriting as consistently across multiple decades.
There have been several milestones throughout John’s career and several songs that have propelled him to where he is today. One of the most popular, it has to be said, is ‘Crocodile Rock’. Though Elton and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin admire the song, they now look back on it with a slight hint of regret.
That regret seems less connected to the quality of the song itself and more to what it came to represent. ‘Crocodile Rock’ became so commercially dominant that it occasionally overshadowed the more nuanced material elsewhere in Elton and Taupin’s catalogue.
Credit: Far Out / Alamy
Bernie described the material as “a strange dichotomy” and said, “I don’t mind having created it, but it’s not something I would listen to.”
The actual narrative of the song is more profound than it may appear on the surface. ‘Crocodile Rock’ plays into the adage of being unable to recognise the best days of your life while you’re in them. The song is performed from the point of view of a person who used to visit a restaurant in the 1950s and ’60s, where locals would do an obscure dance called the ‘crocodile rock’. The song’s protagonist used to love doing this dance, but as time passed, it vanished. He even looks back on his ex-girlfriend, who he used to dance with but has since left him.
Further reading: From The Vault
The profound meaning behind the track may come as a surprise to some due to the fact the track is predominantly recognised for its catchy chorus. The “laaaa la la la la la” became synonymous with audiences and airwaves as people from all over the world would dance to it just like the character in its lyrics.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin are hardly strangers to the profound when writing. Tracks like ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, ‘Candle In The Wind’ and ‘Empty Garden’ are all incredibly emotional. “I don’t want people to remember me for ‘Crocodile Rock’,” he once said on reflection. “I’d much rather they remember me for songs like ‘Candle In The Wind’ and ‘Empty Garden,’ songs that convey a message,” Bernie added. “Well, they don’t really need to convey a message, as long as they can convey a feeling.”
Bernie and Elton are both excellent songwriters, so it is hardly a surprise they want to be remembered as such. Their issue wasn’t that they thought ‘Crocodile Rock’ was a bad song, but it wasn’t a true reflection of their complex capabilities. He added, “There are things like ‘Crocodile Rock’, which was fun at the time, but it was pop fluff. It was like, ‘Okay, that was fun for now, throw it away, and here’s the next one.’”
Elton John also commented on the song, recognising its importance in putting him on the map but also acknowledging that “it was just a one-off thing”.
He said, “It became a huge hit record, and in the long run, it became a negative for me.”
There is a fine line to straddle when writing songs, where one side leans into catchy choruses that so many need and the other goes more towards sparking meaning and emotion in the writer. A good writer can straddle that line, as Elton John has done so many times in his career, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some songs which lean more in a specific direction.
‘Crocodile Rock’ is known as a catchy pop-rock tune, something which Elton can be proud of, but that he doesn’t think reflects him as a writer. However, with it being so popular, it has followed him around his whole career, leading him to ever-so-slightly regret putting it out in the first place.
Ultimately, the song’s lasting popularity says as much about Elton John’s instinct for melody as it does about audience taste. Even material he dismisses as lightweight still carries the craftsmanship of elite pop songwriting beneath the surface.
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