Elton John’s First No. 1 Single in His Home Country Isn’t What You Think It Is

We’re guessing that we can stump you on this one. What was Elton John’s first-ever solo No. 1 single in the United Kingdom? You’ll probably guess all the usual suspects. Maybe “Rocket Man”? “Your Song”, perhaps? Or “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)”?

What if we told you that he didn’t nab the top spot until the start of the 90s? Well, it’s true. And it came with a song that had already been released a year earlier to muted response.

Muted First Impressions

Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the longtime writing partners behind John’s amazing career as an artist, were starting to feel their confidence rising at the end of the 80s again. The decade had been an up-and-down affair for them up to that point, as had been the case with many artists who thrived in the 70s.

But the 1988 album Reg Strikes Back, as the title implied, found them regaining some lost momentum. Eager to follow that up, they decided that they’d try and make a record with a cohesiveness of sound. They settled on the R&B music that they loved from the 60s and 70s as a kind of touchstone for what the record would be.

Once filtered through their own sensibilities, some of that influence got lost in the shuffle. For example, “Sacrifice”, a pensive ballad, feels very much a product of 1989. Some gleaming keyboard work by Gus Babylon and flickering guitar from Davey Johnstone accentuate John’s vocals, which are understated but soulful. Upon release as a single in 1989, “Sacrifice” did better in the US than in the UK, where it didn’t even hit the Top 40. But the story was far from over.

A Second Airing

Bernie Taupin explained (via Elton John.com) his lyrical inspiration for “Sacrifice”:

“It’s a simple lyric, but it’s an intelligent, adult lyric. It’s basically about the rigors of adult love, and it’s a million miles away from ‘Your Song’. Elton came up with a brilliant melody, and his performance on it gives it a lot of integrity and meaning”.

The second life of “Sacrifice” began in 1990. That’s when a DJ on the BBC started playing it with regularity. Emboldened by the sudden resurgence of the song, John decided to re-release it as a single, this time as a double A-side with “Healing Hands”, which was also found on Sleeping With The Past.

This time around, there was no stopping “Sacrifice”. John had hit the top spot in the UK once before with “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, but that was a duet with Kiki Dee. With this song, he took the No. 1 ranking in his native country all on his own for the very first time.

Behind the Lyrics of “Sacrifice”

“Sacrifice” takes an honest look at what happens to a marriage that loses its spark. “Sweet deceit comes callin’,” Elton John moans. “And negativity lands.” The emotions left behind are invisible but insidiously damaging. “No tears to damn you,” he sings. “When jealousy burns.”

The refrain notes that, “It’s two hearts living/In two separate worlds,” the distance between the two entities now seeming routine. When John sings, “It’s no sacrifice at all,” it’s an acknowledgment that the narrator is no longer fighting for his marriage, instead letting it steadily erode.

John returned to the lyrics of the song in “Cold Heart”, a 2021 duet with Dua Lipa that rehashed bits and pieces of several of his classics. “Sacrifice”, very nearly a flop, has turned out to be one of the most resilient and successful songs in the legend’s monumental body of work.

Photo by George Wilkes/Hulton Archive/Getty Images