“Rocket Man” by Elton John

"Rocket Man" goes back to 1972, when Elton John set a Bernie Taupin lyric to music and it went out in the US on March 31 as the first single from Honky Château; here it turns up again on a 1984 Elton John EP. It reached number two in Britain and number six on the Billboard Hot 100, and it has long been reckoned John's signature song.

It earns that. The melody drifts like something cut loose from its moorings, lonely and serene at once, and the chorus lifts off without ever raising its voice. The song simply refuses to fade: 5 million sold in the US, a spot at 149 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs, a billion Spotify streams by January 2024, and a second life in 2021 when John folded it into "Cold Heart" with Pnau and Dua Lipa.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.