by On Aug. 31, 1997, Princess Diana’s abrupt, untimely death in a Paris car crash stunned the entire world.
One week later, 2,000 people converged on London’s Westminster Abbey to remember the Princess of Wales, just 36 years old with two young sons.
There, famed British singer-songwriter Elton John performed the musical tribute, a re-worked version of his Marilyn Monroe-inspired hit “Candle in the Wind.”
On Sept. 13, 1997, John released “Candle in the Wind 1997” as a double-sided single along with “Something About the Way You Look Tonight.” On this day in 1997, the six-time Grammy Award winner hit #1 on the UK charts with what remains “the best-selling charted single of all time.”
Elton John included “Something About the Way You Look Tonight” on his 25th studio album, The Big Picture. Five days after its solo debut, the British legend released the song as a double A-side single along with “Candle in the Wind 1997.”
Selling more than 5 million copies, the double A-side quickly became the best-selling single in UK history, topping the charts in John’s homeland for five weeks. It fared even better in the United States, where it sold more than 11 million copies and spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. To this day, “Something About the Way You Look Tonight/Candle in the Wind 1997” remains the only diamond-certified single in U.S. music history.
Elton John Was Ambivalent Toward His Biggest Hit
Most artists would be ecstatic over the kind of success “Candle in the Wind 1997” brought Elton John. However, the “Tiny Dancer” singer hasn’t performed the re-worked version live since Princess Diana’s funeral.
Diana’s son, Prince Harry, reportedly asked the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer to sing the 1997 track at a 2007 concert marking the 10-year anniversary of her death. According to Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare, John refused, feeling the song choice would be too “macabre.” Instead, he performed his 1970 single “Your Song.”
“In the end, it reached a point where I started feeling really uncomfortable with the charity single’s longevity,” John wrote in his 2019 autobiography Me. “Its success meant there was footage of Diana’s funeral week after week on Top of the Pops. It felt as if people were somehow wallowing in her death, like the mourning for her had got out of hand.”
