Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to the best-selling song of all time. He couldn't tell you any of them. That's one of the revelations contained in Scattershot, the new memoir from the man most famous as Elton John's songwriting partner of over half a century. That the song in question is the rewritten version of "Candle in the Wind" that John performed for Princess Diana's Westminster Abbey funeral makes Taupin's amnesia a little more understandable. Not only is the lyric battling for headspace with the original version, but there's also likely never been a hit song with a worse popularity-to-durability ratio. No one plays "Candle in the Wind '97" these days—probably because it's less a song than a musical commemorative plaque, an inscription of the collective grief that flooded much of the world upon the untimely death of the Princess of Wales.
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