“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” earned Elton John (and co-writer Bernie Taupin and duet partner Kiki Dee) their first No. 1 single in their native U.K., which would be a natural source of pride for any musician. But rather than put their names front and center, John and Taupin used different names for their songwriting credits: Ann Orson and Carte Blanche.
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Their aliases were at least two years old by the time they released “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” in 1976, proving quite the commitment to the bit.
When Elton John and Bernie Taupin First Used Different Names
Elton John and Bernie Taupin began what would become a decades-long friendship and award-winning musical collaboration in the late 1960s. The release of John’s eponymous sophomore album skyrocketed the pair to the top of the charts with hits like “Your Song.” Follow-ups included “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” These songs proudly boasted the songwriting credits of John and Taupin. But in the mid-1970s, they decided to adopt different names to reflect a peculiar situation they were in.
Around 1974, John introduced a song he and Taupin wrote called “Hard Luck Story” to his friend, muse, and duet partner, Kiki Dee. Although she was the first person to release a version of the song, John knew he was planning on including the track in his upcoming album, Rock of the Westies, which he was releasing the following year. So as not to take away from Dee’s version, John and Taupin adopted monikers to avoid becoming a distraction. Their names, Ann Orson and Carte Blanche, were a play on the words “horse” and “cart.”
The fake names were a two-part joke. Carte Blanche, of course, could be seen as a wink to the French term meaning complete freedom and discretionary power. It was also a prominent credit card company. Then, there is the element of putting the cart before the horse. In the case of “Hard Luck Story,” they were releasing their version after Dee. For “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” John and Taupin adopted these different names because they switched their typical songwriting order. Rather than Taupin coming up with lyrics to which John would write music, the pianist had a melody and general idea already in mind when he sent the early stages of the song to Taupin over the phone.
How Ann and Carte Trusted The Process and Came Up With a Hit
The songwriting process for “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” wasn’t just new for co-writers Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Other people in the studio noticed, too. Producer Gus Dudgeon recalled in an interview on John’s website, “Elton didn’t have a lyric for it. It was so weird to see him writing a song in the studio with no lyric. I’d never seen him do it before. And all he was singing was, Don’t go breaking my heart, don’t go breaking my heart, don’t go breaking my heart, don’t go breaking my heart, don’t go breaking my heart. That’s what he sang all the way through.” John sent the idea to Taupin, who wrote the rest.
Fortunately for everyone involved—John, Taupin, Ann Orson, Carte Blanche, and Kiki Dee, among others—the song proved to be a smash hit. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” became an instant classic, garnering John and Dee their first No. 1 single in the U.K. “I remember hearing it on the radio for the first time and thinking, ‘Wow,’” Dee recalled. “‘Cause some records, especially in those days, they have to sound great on the radio, and this was one of those records that did. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this could do okay. This could go.’”
“I was terribly proud for my mum and dad,” Dee continued. “They’d stuck with me. I started professionally when I was 17 years old, and this was over ten years later. So, I was so pleased for them. And Elton was chuffed. He had a little gold heart necklace made for me, which said, ‘Don’t go breaking my heart.’ I’ve still got that.”
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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