Those who know the Elton John/Bernie Taupin songwriting partnership know that it happens via a certain process. Taupin writes the lyrics, to which John composes the lyrics. But there have been occasional divergences from this pattern, most notably with the 1976 hit “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.”
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What is the song about? Why was “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” written differently from the norm? And what about the double album that included it? Let’s dive into this memorable Elton John ballad.
Feeling Blue
John stood at the top of the heap when it came to rock and roll success stories of the first half of the ’70s. But by the middle of the decade, wear and tear from his relentless schedule started to show. He decided to lessen his touring, and to that end, cut ties with his longtime band.
His 1976 double album Blue Moves reflected his new situation. It’s largely devoid of overt rock and roll elements, focusing instead on softer textures, occasionally lapsing into experimental territory. It was designed to be a kind of challenge to his audience, while critics were left a little bit unimpressed by the long running time and lack of obvious hits.
Blue Moves has gained a reputation in retrospect as a kind of lost classic. It also represented the (temporary) end of an era. John and Taupin decided to take a break from writing together after the album was completed. But at least they delivered one more gorgeously sad ballad as a farewell present to listeners.
Elton Takes the Lead
The story goes that John was noodling around on a piano and started playing some chords that sounded pretty good to him. He imagined a few lines of the lyrics as well. This was not the way he usually worked, since he didn’t have any Taupin lyrics pushing him in a certain direction. But Taupin liked what he heard, as he explained on his website (as reported by Songfacts):
“Interesting thing about ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’ is that it’s one of the rare occasions when Elton played me a melody line that inspired a lyric, as opposed to our routine of the lyrics always coming first. He was messing around on the piano one day and was playing something and asked me what did I think. It was actually pretty immediate, the title and the first couple of lines came into my head in a way that I guess I felt they were already there and just needed a little prompting.”
Once he was up and running with the lyrics, Taupin knew the song was headed in a melancholy direction. “It’s a pretty simple idea, but one that I think everyone can relate to at one point or another in their life,” he remembered. “That whole idealistic feeling people get when they want to save something from dying when they basically know deep down inside that it’s already dead. It’s that heartbreaking, sickening part of love that you wouldn’t wish on anyone if you didn’t know that it’s inevitable that they’re going to experience it one day.”
The Meaning of “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”
Perhaps because John helped with writing the lyrics, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” is one of the more straightforward songs in his catalog. Taupin often takes his lyrics into unexpected directions, trusting John will put the meaning across. But here, he and John stick with a simple message of regret in the song, and the direct nature of the plea is what gives it much of its power.
The song is framed as a series of questions asked by the narrator, and the sad undertow of the music makes it clear that the answers aren’t going to be what he wants to hear. What I do when lightning strikes me / And I wake to find that you’re not there? John moans. In the refrains, he can only reflect on his predicament, as John soars into its highest register: It’s a sad, sad situation / And it’s getting more and more absurd.
The only truth that he can ascertain: Oh it seems to me / That sorry seems to be the hardest word. It’s a beautiful evocation of the bottomless sadness that envelops someone who has lost the most important thing in their life, likely due to their own mistakes. Elton John and Bernie Taupin might have done something a little different with “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.” But the end result is typical of their brilliant output.
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