Bernie Taupin

Bernard John Taupin (taw-PIN; born 22 May 1950) is an English lyricist and visual artist. He is best known for his songwriting partnership with Elton John, recognised as one of the most successful partnerships of its kind in history. Taupin co-wrote the majority of John's songs, dating back to the 1960s.

In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement in the music paper New Musical Express placed by Liberty Records, a company that was seeking new songwriters. John responded to the same advertisement and they were brought together, collaborating on many albums since. Taupin and John were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992.

In 2020, Taupin and John received the Oscar for Best Original Song for "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from the film Rocketman. Taupin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence Award category in 2023. In 2024, Taupin and John were awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Also in 2024, Taupin won the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.

Taupin was born at Flatters House, a farmhouse located between the village of Anwick and the town of Sleaford in Lincolnshire, the son of Robert Taupin and Daphne (née Cort). His paternal grandparents were French, the Taupin family having come to London at the turn of the 20th century to set up a wine-importing business.

Taupin's father was educated in Dijon and was employed as a stockman by a large farm estate near the town of Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. Taupin's mother spent most of the Second World War living in Switzerland. On her return to London, she worked as a governess for the Taupin family, in which connection she met Robert Taupin, whom she married in 1947. The family later moved to Rowston Manor, where they lived rent-free because of Robert's promotion to farm manager. This was a significant step up from Flatters farmhouse, which had no electricity.

In 1959, Taupin's father decided to try independent farming, and the family moved to the north Lincolnshire village of Owmby-by-Spital, where they lived at the run-down 10-acre Maltkiln Farm, the income from which derived from battery-farming chickens for eggs. The house lacked heating and up-to-date plumbing. Taupin's 11-year-younger brother, Kit, was born there.

Unlike his older brother, Tony, who attended a grammar school and later went to university, Taupin was not a diligent student, although he showed an early flair for writing. At 15, he left school and started work as a trainee in the print room of the local newspaper, the Lincolnshire Standard, with aspirations of becoming a journalist. Taupin soon left that job, and spent the rest of his teenage years hanging out with friends, hitchhiking the country roads to attend youth club dances in the surrounding villages, playing snooker in the Aston Arms pub in Market Rasen, and drinking. Taupin had worked at several part-time jobs when, at 17, he answered the advertisement that eventually led to his collaboration with Elton John.

Taupin's mother had studied French literature, and his maternal grandfather John Leonard Patchett "Poppy" Cort, a classics teacher and graduate of the University of Cambridge, instilled in him an appreciation for nature and literature and narrative poetry, all of which influenced his early lyrics.