Closing his piano lid at the end of his show at Stockholm’s Tele2 Arena in July 2023, Elton John bid adieu to over 50 years of world touring.
It’s unlikely to end his live shows for good, stating he’s open to “the odd show” henceforth, but the nearly five-year Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour placed a definite end to his mammoth global schedules he’d tirelessly undertaken across his career.
Since 1969’s Empty Sky debut album, John had played over 4,000 shows in over 80 countries, including dates in the USSR, and even late in his career could command record-breaking TV viewings for broadcast sets, with his 2023 Glastonbury Festival headliner attracting over seven million viewers on BBC One.
For the first 20 years of his recording career, John was a machine. While soaring between giddy, glammed-up heights and cocaine-blitzed dross, he nonetheless pumped out 21 studio albums across the 1970s and ‘80s before slowing down into the 2010s with his 30th studio effort, Wonderful Crazy Night, his last real album since 2021’s Regimental Sgt Zippo, recorded before his official debut but rejected at the time.
There’s a lot of John to sift through to collate a setlist, even early on in his career. Yet, certain eras and records make a hefty presence in his repertoire, Setlist having gathered the data reaching back to his first concerts in the late 1960s as to which song the ‘Rocket Man’ has played more than any other. In the top ten, the 1980s get two look-ins with the manic ‘I’m Still Standing’ and ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues’ woozy synth croon, both from 1983’s Too Low for Zero.
Unsurprisingly, it’s his 1970s heyday that completely dominates his most-played numbers. All orbiting his glam-adjacent output, canonical John cuts from the likes of ‘Tiny Dancer’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’, and ‘The Bitch is Back’ boast high play counts, curiously above such standards as ‘Candle in the Wind’ and ‘Crocodile Rock’.
At number four with over 2200 performances is Caribou’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, later reaching another level of fame off his acclaimed live duet with George Michael. ‘Bennie and the Jets’ from 1973’s Technicolor Goodbye Yellow Brick Road opus follows with over 2300 live stabs, and the silver medal is handed to Honky Château’s shimmering and defining theme ‘Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)’ with 2367 onstage renditions.
So, what song has Elton John performed the most?
Long before the outfits had reached chintzy rococo levels of flamboyance, John was pushing ahead with a more earnest variant of singer-songwriter balladry, less concerned with glam bombast and stadium-stirring anthems. Originally released by Three Dog Night, the definitive version of ‘Your Song’ will always stand as the take cut by him and writing partner Bernie Taupin.
The second single from 1970’s Elton John, ‘Your Song’ is routinely celebrated as the singer’s finest moment, and for good reason, taking his top spot of most played tune, counting 2511 performances since first landing at the infancy of his pop conquering stardom.
