In a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, Taupin said "I saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band, fronted by an androgynous woman, who looks like something out of a Helmut Newton photograph.

"[5] Produced by Gus Dudgeon, the song was recorded during the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road sessions in France at Château d'Hérouville's Strawberry Studios,[6] where John and Taupin had recorded their previous two albums Honky Château and Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player.

When performing the song live, John rarely plays the studio arrangement, and often makes subtle or even drastic changes, sometimes including phrases from Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and closing with the five-note combination from John Williams' score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

'Dudgeon mixed in sounds from a 1972 performance by John at the Royal Festival Hall and a 1970 Jimi Hendrix concert on the Isle of Wight.

[11] The song was the closing track on side one of the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and John was set against releasing it as a single, believing it would fail.

"[15] Record World said that "With Elton showcasing his remarkable voice range, it can't miss grabbing the top spot.

"[16] "Bennie and the Jets" was John's first Top 40 hit on what at the time was called the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart, where it peaked at No.

[18][19] In May 2017, the music video for "Bennie and the Jets" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as a winner of Elton John: The Cut, a competition organised in partnership with AKQA, Pulse Films, and YouTube in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of his songwriting relationship with Bernie Taupin.

The video was influenced by early cinema and the work of Busby Berkeley, portraying characters as participants on a talent show auditioning for Bennie.