LCM
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAGAZINE
TREASURES
FROM THE LIBRARY
New ‘Collecting Memories’ Exhibit
Showcases Fabulous Collection Items
Plus
When Disaster Strikes
We Want Your COVID Stories
A Gershwin for the Rocketman
The Sound of History Being Made
▪ Opposite: Metallica (clockwise from top left),
Brandi Carlile, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Charlie Puth
and Billy Porter onstage at Constitution Hall. Shawn Miller
Left: Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden bestows
the Gershwin Prize on Bernie Taupin (left)
and Elton John. Shawn Miller
Inset: The Gershwin Prize medal honoring the
songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin.
Library of Congress
'THIS ONE'S FOR
YOU'
Library bestows its Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
“My gift is my song,” the lyric goes, and on March 20 America repaid its writers with the nation’s highest honor for achievement in popular music.
The Library of Congress bestowed its Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the songwriting duo that over 50-plus years conquered the pop music world, sold some 300 million records and co-wrote dozens of classic songs that helped define an era.
Taupin wrote the lyrics, John composed the music and, together, they produced a string of hits that made Elton the biggest, and most outrageously dressed, rock star on the planet: “Your Song,” “Rocket Man,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Daniel” and on and on.
“Thank you, America, for the music you’ve given us all over the world,” John told the audience at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. “It’s an incredible legacy that you have. … I’m so proud to be British and to be here
in America to receive this award, because all my heroes were American. I’m very humbled by tonight.”
Some of the duo’s biggest fans — major stars in their own right — appeared onstage at Constitution Hall to pay tribute: previous Gershwin Prize recipients Garth Brooks and Joni Mitchell, plus Metallica, Annie Lennox, Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Charlie Puth, Jacob Lusk, SistaStrings and Broadway star Billy Porter.
The show closed with “Your Song,” the ballad that in 1970 became John’s first top 10 hit — more than five decades later, still one of those songs everybody knows. Together in the spotlight on a darkened stage, Taupin leaned on the piano, listening, as John played and sang: “My gift is my song, and this one’s for you.”
In return, America offered them the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song and its gratitude for a lifetime of memorable music.
—Mark Hartsell is editor of LCM.