• Writers: Elton John and Bernie Taupin
• Producer: Gus Dudgeon
• Recorded: May 1973 at Strawberry Studios, France
• Released: Fall 1973
• Players:
  Elton John — vocals, piano
  Davey Johnstone — guitar, vocals
  Dee Murray — bass, vocals
  Nigel Olsson — drums, vocals
  David Hentschel — synthesizer
• Album: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (MCA, 1973/Rocket, 1995)
• Also On:
  Here And There (MCA, 1976/Rocket, 1995)
  To Be Continued (MCA, 1990)

• Although never released as a proper single, the “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” combination is one of Elton John‘s most popular album tracks. He’s often used it to open his concerts.
• Of “Funeral For A Friend,” John said, “(Producer) Gus Dudgeon had always said I should do an instrumental. One day I was feeling really down and said to myself, ‘What kind of music would I like to hear at my own funeral?’ I’d always liked funeral music anyway. I like very sad music of any kind.”
• John and his band began recording the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album in Kingston, Jamaica, but were unhappy with the facilities and left after laying down an early take of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting.” John said, “We stayed at a hotel called the Pink Flamingo or something like that. I was afraid to go out of the room, because it was pretty funky in downtown Kingston.” Lyricist Bernie Taupin added, “If I remember rightly, the studio was surrounded by barbed wire, and there were guys with machine guns.”
• John says that once back in France, the album was recorded in about 15 days: “The amount of work we did… We used to record three, four, five tracks a day.”

FAST FORWARD:

• Bassist Dee Murray died of a stroke on January 14th, 1992.
• Dudgeon and his wife were killed in a car accident July 21st, 2002.
• Guitarist Davey Johnstone has remained a constant presence in John’s band, while drummer Nigel Olsson rejoined John for his 2001-2002 concert dates.
• Despite periodic highly publicized “retirements,” John has continued to record and perform.
• He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
• Since coming out as gay, John has become increasingly active in promoting AIDS research and tolerance for AIDS sufferers, including an annual post-Oscar party to raise money for his own foundation.
• He’s branched out into film and theater work, including soundtracks and scores for successes including The Lion King, The Road To El Dorado, and Aida, as well as Lestat, which closed after dismal reviews. In fact, John and lyricist Tim Rice won an Oscar in 1995 for Best Original Song for The Lion King‘s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight.”
• His reworked version of his hit “Candle In The Wind,” in memory of the late Princess Diana, was recorded to raise money for the Princess Diana Of Wales Foundation.
• John received the Grammy Legend Award at the 2000 ceremony and courted controversy at the 2001 ceremony by performing with rapper Eminem.
• John celebrated his 50th birthday on March 25th, 1997, and Britain’s Royal Academy Of Music named John an honorary member — the 175-year-old school’s top honor. John studied piano at the Royal Academy in the ’60s, when he was considering a career in classical music. The Academy termed John a “prodigiously gifted child” who would have progressed to the senior level had he continued.
• John has taken the British government to task for its record in AIDS prevention and awareness. He told the Sky News service that he’s “disgusted with the way the health service in England is operating. We (in Britain) had a great record on AIDS when we started, but that record is now not as good as it was under the (conservative Margaret) Thatcher government. You should be ashamed of yourselves — you’re socialists, or supposed to be. For God’s sake, we live in the 21st century — the trains don’t work, the health service doesn’t work, people are dying from AIDS, what are you doing? Get your act together, it’s a disgrace.”
• In 2004, John launched a long-running show called The Red Piano in Las Vegas.
• John played the Live 8 show in London on July 2nd, 2005, then flew to Philadelphia to headline the Philadelphia Freedom Concert And Ball two days later to raise money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Philadelphia-area HIV/AIDS provider organizations.

John and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin released a sequel to Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy in 2006, titled The Captain & The Kid.