 now from the historical audio archives of fox news talk in the 1970s and 80s one of the most successful songwriting duos was elton john and bernie toppen elton john discusses their music composing relationship he writes the lyrics first and gives them to me and then i i write the songs to them in the old days i would slice bits of verses out and cut things here and there it's not so bad so bad now um but it's always been lyrics first um