Elton John Trivia
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98 free Elton John trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
46 free Elton John trivia questions with answers. Elton John has been famous for more than fifty years, and the details are better than the legend. He got his surname from a saxophonist, wore glasses he did not need to look like Buddy Holly, played Central Park dressed as Donald Duck, and has performed his best-selling single exactly once. This quiz runs 98 questions across the whole career: the Bluesology days and the NME advert that paired him with Bernie Taupin, the run of 1970s albums from Your Song to Captain Fantastic, the duets, the Watford years, The Lion King and Aida, Princess Diana's funeral, Rocketman, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour and the Emmy that made him an EGOT. It starts with questions any radio listener will get and works up to ones for people who own the box sets. Every answer has been checked against reference sources, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a music quiz night, a road trip playlist argument or a birthday party for a lifelong fan.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Elton John's birth name?
Reginald Kenneth Dwight
He was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947 and became Elton Hercules John by deed poll in 1972, the middle name borrowed from the horse in Steptoe and Son.
Q 02Where in England was Elton John born and raised?
Pinner, Middlesex
Elton John was born in Pinner, Middlesex, in 1947 and grew up there in a council house with his maternal grandparents, picking out tunes on his grandmother's piano.
Q 03Elton John's stage name honours which two members of his former band Bluesology?
Elton Dean and Long John Baldry
Elton Dean and Long John Baldry were Bluesology's saxophonist and singer; Baldry later talked him out of an unhappy engagement, a rescue Elton thanked him for in 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight'.
Q 04Elton John won a junior scholarship at 11 to which London music school?
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Music taught him part-time from 1959 to 1964; he quit shortly before his final exams to chase a career in pop, starting as an errand boy at a music publisher.
Q 05What was the title of Elton John's 1969 debut album?
Empty Sky
Empty Sky came out in Britain in June 1969 but was not released in America until 1975, so US listeners first met him through his self-titled second album.
Q 06Which 1970 single became Elton John's first hit, reaching the UK and US top ten?
Your Song
'Your Song' reached number eight in the US and number seven in the UK in early 1971; it began as the B-side of 'Take Me to the Pilot' until disc jockeys preferred it and the single was flipped.
Q 07At which California club did Elton John play his career-making first American concert on 25 August 1970?
The Troubadour
The Troubadour show on 25 August 1970 drew rave newspaper reviews that launched him in America; he came back to the club in 1975 for a run of anniversary concerts.
Q 08Which was Elton John's first US Billboard Hot 100 number one?
Crocodile Rock
'Crocodile Rock' topped the Hot 100 for three weeks in February 1973; Elton wrote the nostalgic pastiche after hearing the Australian band Daddy Cool and their hit 'Eagle Rock' on tour in 1972.
Q 09'Rocket Man' was the lead single from which 1972 album?
Honky Château
Honky Château takes its name from the Château d'Hérouville, the French country-house studio where it was recorded in January 1972; it became his first US number-one album.
Q 10Which science-fiction writer's short story inspired the lyrics of 'Rocket Man'?
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's 'The Rocket Man', from his collection The Illustrated Man, follows an astronaut whose job keeps him from his family; Taupin has said he took the idea by way of a 1970 Pearls Before Swine song based on the story.
Q 11Which actor performed a widely parodied spoken-word version of 'Rocket Man' in 1978?
William Shatner
William Shatner recited it at the Science Fiction Film Awards after an introduction by Bernie Taupin himself; Family Guy later had Stewie deliver his own spoken version.
Q 12'Tiny Dancer' opens which 1971 album?
Madman Across the Water
'Tiny Dancer' opens Madman Across the Water; the song has long been linked to Maxine Feibelman, who sewed for the band on tour and married Taupin in 1971, but he has said he was writing about California women in general.
Q 13Which 2000 Cameron Crowe film gave 'Tiny Dancer' a second life with a tour-bus singalong scene?
Almost Famous
Q 21As which cartoon character did Elton John dress for part of his 1980 Central Park concert?
Donald Duck
Elton John played part of the Central Park show on 13 September 1980 dressed as Donald Duck; the concert also reunited him with Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson, the bassist and drummer of his original band.
Q 22In 1979, Elton John became one of the first Western pop artists to tour which country?
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union shows in May 1979, in Leningrad and Moscow with only percussionist Ray Cooper, led to A Single Man becoming his first album released there officially; earlier records had been smuggled in.
Q 23Whom did Elton John marry on Valentine's Day 1984?
Renate Blauel
Almost Famous has a touring band at each other's throats make peace by singing along to it on their bus; as a single in 1972, 'Tiny Dancer' had stalled at number 41 in the US.
Q 14Which Elton John hit sounds like a concert recording but is a studio track with crowd noise mixed in?
Bennie and the Jets
'Bennie and the Jets' was cut in the studio; producer Gus Dudgeon then mixed in applause from a 1972 Elton show at London's Royal Festival Hall, plus whistles from another concert and handclaps.
Q 15Which US TV show did Elton John appear on in May 1975, one of the first white artists to do so?
Soul Train
Elton John sang 'Bennie and the Jets' and 'Philadelphia Freedom' on Soul Train in May 1975; the first of those had crossed over to Black radio and charted on Billboard's soul singles list.
Q 16Which 1973 double album featuring 'Candle in the Wind' topped the US and UK charts?
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was meant to be recorded in Jamaica, but the studio there was not up to the job, so the band decamped to France and made the album there instead.
Q 17Which 1975 album was the first ever to debut at US number one?
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy entered the Billboard 200 at number one in June 1975; the autobiographical album casts Elton as the Captain and Taupin as the Cowboy.
Q 18With whom did Elton John duet on the 1976 chart-topper 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart'?
Kiki Dee
Kiki Dee, signed to Elton's Rocket label, was not in the room: he recorded his vocal in Toronto and she added hers later in London, yet the duet became his first UK number one single.
Q 19Which football club did Elton John chair from 1976 to 1987 and again from 1997 to 2002?
Watford
Elton John bought Watford in 1976; under his chairmanship the club climbed from the Fourth Division to First Division runners-up in 1983 and reached the 1984 FA Cup Final.
Q 20Which manager took Elton's football club from the Fourth Division to top-flight runners-up?
Graham Taylor
Graham Taylor had won the Fourth Division title with Lincoln City the year before Elton hired him in 1977; five years later the club was in the top flight, and he went on to manage England.
Renate Blauel, a German sound engineer he met in the studio while making Too Low for Zero in 1983, married him on 14 February 1984; they divorced in 1988.
Q 24Which song, in 1990, finally gave Elton John his first solo UK number one single?
Sacrifice
'Sacrifice' had stalled at number 55 in 1989; after DJ Steve Wright began playing it on Radio 1, it was reissued with 'Healing Hands' and went to number one in June 1990.
Q 25Whose live duet with Elton John on 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' topped the UK and US charts?
George Michael
George Michael brought Elton on as a surprise guest at Wembley Arena in March 1991; the recording topped the UK chart that December and the US chart in February 1992.
Q 26With which lyricist did Elton John write the songs for Disney's The Lion King?
Tim Rice
Tim Rice, who had finished Aladdin's lyrics with Alan Menken after Howard Ashman's death, wrote the words; three of the film's songs were nominated for Best Original Song at the 1995 Oscars.
Q 27Which song won Elton John his first Academy Award?
Can You Feel the Love Tonight
'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' was first planned as a comic number for Timon and Pumbaa; Elton objected, it was reworked as Simba and Nala's love song, and it won the 1995 Oscar for Best Original Song.
Q 28Elton John shared 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with which rock singer at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert?
Axl Rose
Axl Rose joined Elton and the surviving members of Queen for the song at Wembley Stadium; in 1994 the Guns N' Roses singer also inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Q 29The original 1973 'Candle in the Wind' was a tribute to whom?
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, is the subject: the opening line 'Goodbye Norma Jean' became 'Goodbye England's rose' when Taupin rewrote it for Princess Diana in 1997.
Q 30Where in London did Elton John give his only public performance of 'Candle in the Wind 1997'?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey heard it once, at Diana's funeral on 6 September 1997; Elton went back to singing the original at his concerts and never performed the rewritten words again.