This one's for you: The story behind Elton John's hit 'Your Song'

Elton John is enjoying one of the most dazzling victory laps in pop history. A big screen biopic starring Taron Egerton as the artist is known as Reginald Dwight (with Mr Bodyguard Richard Madden as his manager) is due next summer. His farewell tour, meanwhile, rumbles ever onwards with new dates spreading his final hurrah into 2020.

And now comes the ultimate Christmas treat for Elton aficionados with his peerless 1970 ballad "Your Song" John Lewis seasonal ad. Better yet, they've gone over and asked for more John Lewis's route to having some obscure-ish newcomer do the honors.

Actually they've done more than that. The £ 7m spot functions as a mini Elton biopic in itself, with the singer starting tinkling at his living room piano and then traveling back in time to his glory years at a Seventies rocker with oversized shows and, ultimately, to his formative days playing piano at school. John Lewis or Elton John's Greatest Hits.

The choice of "Your Song" to soundtrack the spot is entirely fitting. It was the first hit John would write with its lyricist partner Bernie Taupin. And he was largely responsible for catapulting him, at age 23, to success in America, where he gave such major industry figures as Quincy Jones, David Crosby, and The Beach Boys' Goosebumps during his landmark 1970 residency at the LA Troubadour.

But the origins of the track are far from the glitz of Hollywood. John – then still going on plain old Reg Dwight – had first crossed paths with Taupin in 1967 when he asked for the same ad by London music label Liberty Records seeking new talent. Neither received the much coveted record deal – but the moguls at Liberty, located in the British rock 'n roll center of Denmark Street, suggests they work together.

Taupin, a socially awkward Lincolnshire native who felt a bit of a bumpkin in happening in London, was initially wary of John. But he was united to discover that his collaborator was as shy as he and they were united in their shared sense of being outsiders. Yet, for all their seeming timidity, they were united in a fast-paced way and had their blues on their way to a gig as songwriters at legendary music publisher Dick James's DJM Records.

They were friends and colleagues – even co-dependent in a way. Stuck for somewhere to stay, Taupin duly moved in with John and his mother at their house at Pinner Hill Road in north-west London. And when John left home to live with his first girlfriend, Taupin packed his bags too much and bunked down the spare room.

It was back in Mrs John's home that he had dashed out "Your Song" one morning in 1967, between eggs and coffee. Steve Brown, a music producer who would later become Elton's manager, had been supportive of John and Taupin's work. But he felt they could do better and they urged that they write "with their hearts".

Here Taupin took that message on board. Just wrote, and wrote, "Your Song" has a deeply idealistic valentine to an imagined girlfriend. Its simplicity flowed from Taupin's lack of experience in such worldly matters.

"The original lyric was written very rapidly on the kitchen table of Elton's mother's [house] in Northwood Hills in the suburbs of London, if I recall, he would remember. "It's the voice of someone who has not experienced love in any way. It's a very virginal song. "

John and Taupin were the only collaborators and "Your Song" established the pattern they would follow, with Taupin working on the lyrics alone and John then retreating to write the melody.

Much like in the John Lewis ad, he took the lyrics sheet, with his coffee stains and egg spatters, in the living room and the family's "bird cage" piano (which we see him receiving a gift in the commercial – a fiction of John Lewis's invention). Within 20 minutes, he had the fundamentals of the track together.

Now they had to convince someone to let them record it. Here, serendipity played its part. John and Taupin were practicing at night at the DJM studios. One night, the security guard working in the bank and the alarm.

Dick James was furious to hear his employees, but became mollified when his in-house guitarist, Caleb Quaye, played for him John and Taupin were working on. Floored by the quality of the compositions, James signed them to a record deal proper, which is how, in January 1970, the pair found themselves in Trident Studios at St Anne's Court in Soho (where the Beatles had recorded much of the White Album and Bowie would later set down The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars).

Gus Dudgeon, who'd worked with Bowie on Space Oddity. Also in situ was a string-section, to be arranged by Paul Buckmaster (responsible for the orchestration on Space Oddity).

John was a bag of nerves – "if I f ** ed up … the element of fear was great" – he sat at the piano to lead the band through "Your Song". The session was satisfactory but not intended as the final recording of the tune. The plan is for you to be some of the best of the world. The Hollies are already eying "Your Song" as a potential smash for them.

But Dick James was pretty impressed that he decided to release the record as it was., Which is how the "Elton John" came into the world on April 10, 1970. Six months later, Los Angles for his first US tour.

Where he had found it impossible to turn heads back in Britain, in London. He has six introductory dates at Doug Weston's legendary troubadour come in Santa Monica and Neil Diamond. "I'm like the rest of you," he said. "I'm here because of Elton John's album." By the end of the run he was a super-star in the making.

If America adored Elton, the love was quickly reciprocated. On his second night at the Troubadour, he got a lot of Mickey Mouse, and he gave it to you. The audience swooned, with the reviewer of the Times wring, "Tuesday night at the troubadour was just the beginning. Elton John is going to be one of rock's biggest biggest stars."

Weston was so taken with John that he convinced his friend Andy Williams. William reluctantly obliged, which is how, on December 11, 1970, John was at a piano in a Hollywood studio television belting out your song. Among those to catch the recording was John Lennon. He proclaimed the young man "The first thing that happened (The Beatles) happened." "Your Song" would be later in the US charts.

John performs "Your Song" on every night of his farewell tour. He has described it as "perfect" and is of the opinion that it is the best in his repertoire. But he is as much in the dark as its true meaning as anyone else, beyond his hunch that Taupin wrote it about an early crush.

Taupin is understandably proud of it, too. "I think 'Your Song' is a gem. Our classic, I'm not sure. I'll let others decide that. But it's like an old friend, it means a lot of things. It's certainly proven its worth, and I've heard it at million times. It's like a good dog, it's always there. "