Elton John – Crocodile Rock

Inspired By An Australian Band He’d Never Admit Copying

Released on October 27, 1972 in the UK and November 20 in the US, “Crocodile Rock” became Elton John’s first American number one, reaching the top spot on February 3, 1973 and staying there for three weeks. The single also hit number one in Canada for four weeks and peaked at number five in the UK, making it his first transatlantic smash after years of building momentum with “Your Song” and “Rocket Man.” What audiences didn’t realize was that the entire track was inspired by Australian band Daddy Cool and their monster hit “Eagle Rock,” which Elton discovered during his 1971 tour Down Under. The album packaging cheekily included a photo of Bernie Taupin wearing a “Daddy Who?” promotional badge, perhaps the only acknowledgment Elton would ever give to his Australian inspiration.

In the United States, the track was certified gold on February 5, 1973, just two days after hitting number one, and achieved platinum status on September 13, 1995. The single spent fourteen weeks in the top forty, the longest run of any Elton single at that time, and ranked seventh on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 chart for 1973. In Canada, it dominated the RPM 100 chart from February 17 through March 10, four straight weeks at the summit. The song reached number one in Italy and Switzerland, number two in Australia on the Kent Music Report, and number eleven in the Netherlands. It was competing against Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and later Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” yet managed to displace Wonder’s masterpiece and hold off Flack’s eventual takeover.

Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics first, as was his custom with Elton, crafting a nostalgic story about teenagers in the 1950s doing a fictional dance called the crocodile rock. Taupin referenced Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” in the lyrics, painting a picture of innocent romance with the narrator’s girlfriend Suzy and their old gold Chevy, skimming stones and holding hands before Suzy left for some foreign guy. The working-class British songwriter had fallen in love with American rock and roll, particularly the simplicity and innocence of that era before the British Invasion complicated everything. Elton added the melody with his usual speed, sometimes composing tunes the same day Bernie brought down lyrics from his room at the Chateau. The opening Farfisa organ riff that dominates the song paid homage to Johnny and the Hurricanes’ “Red River Rock,” while producer Gus Dudgeon pushed bassist Dee Murray to simplify his playing, repeatedly asking him to make it sound like John Fred and his Playboy Band’s “Judy in Disguise.”

The recording happened during early June 1972 at the Chateau d’Herouville in France, though the studio was mysteriously credited as Strawberry Studios on the album sleeve and initial pressings incorrectly stated it was recorded in England. Elton assembled his newly augmented band featuring Davey Johnstone on electric guitar, Nigel Olsson on drums, Dee Murray on bass, and Elton himself on piano, vocals, and for the first of only four times in his studio career, Farfisa organ. The band contributed handclaps to the chorus, creating that fifties group singalong feel. Elton performed all vocals including the falsetto backing parts, intentionally mimicking singer Bobby Vee’s voice to complete the period pastiche. The entire track sheet survives, showing how quickly Team Elton worked when inspiration struck. A dozen or so songs were composed and recorded in just four days at the chateau, with Bernie writing lyrics in his room and bringing them to breakfast where Elton would add melodies before lunch.

“Crocodile Rock” served as the lead single from Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, Elton’s sixth studio album released on January 26, 1973. The album was the first of two he’d release that year, followed nine months later by the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The album topped both the US Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart, spending its first six weeks at number one in Britain before yielding to Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies. The album spawned another massive hit with “Daniel,” which reached number two in the US and number four in the UK, actually charting higher than “Crocodile Rock” in Britain. The album’s title came from an incident with legendary comedian Groucho Marx, who after an evening of constant ribbing held out his fingers in the shape of a gun while Elton played piano at a party.

The song has been covered across surprisingly diverse territories. The Beach Boys recorded a harmonious version on the 1991 tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, emphasizing the pop-rock appeal with their signature vocal layering. Taron Egerton performed it for the 2019 Rocketman biopic soundtrack, capturing Elton’s energetic style while integrating it into the film’s narrative of the singer’s early career. Blues-rock duo Larkin Poe stripped it down to acoustic instrumentation on their 2020 album Kindred Spirits, while Boston punk band Gang Green delivered a chaotic take on their 1991 album Another Wasted Night. Elton himself performed it on The Muppet Show in 1978 alongside crocodile puppets in a swamp setting, wearing one of his more elaborate feathered tropical costumes that he’d wear again forty years later in the film Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Both Elton and Bernie later distanced themselves from the song, with Taupin telling Esquire in 2011 that he didn’t mind having created it but it’s not something he would listen to, calling it pop fluff that was fun at the time but disposable. Elton himself dismissed criticism that it was derivative, admitting in a 1995 interview that he wanted it to be a record about all the things he grew up with, acknowledging it’s a rip-off, it’s derivative in every sense of the word. In 1973, he told Rolling Stone he wouldn’t want to still be playing the song in fifteen years, yet during his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour from 2018 to 2023, it served as a regular set closer energizing crowds across more than three hundred dates. In a 2021 interview, he announced his intention to retire it from performances, calling it a joke pastiche he was eager to bid farewell to. The song’s sheer popularity created a backlash among radio DJs who grew to hate playing it repeatedly after auditorium testing consistently gave it very high marks. Forty-six years after predicting he wouldn’t want to perform it, Elton finally retired “Crocodile Rock,” proving sometimes the disposable pop becomes the hardest thing to throw away.