Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the seventh studio album by English singer, pianist, and composer Elton John.

[3] Among the 17 tracks, the album contains the hits "Candle in the Wind", US number-one single "Bennie and the Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", along with the live favourite "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding".

The album was a strong commercial success, reaching number one on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart; it has since sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and is widely regarded as John's magnum opus.

Under the working titles of Vodka and Tonics and Silent Movies, Talking Pictures, Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics in two and a half weeks, with Elton John composing most of the melodies in three days while staying at the Pink Flamingo Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica.

[8] Production on the album was started in Jamaica in January 1973, but due to difficulties with the sound system and the studio piano, logistical issues arising from the Joe Frazier–George Foreman boxing match taking place in Kingston, and protests over the political and economic situation in the country, the band decided to move before any productive work was done.

[7][9] Tracks include "Bennie and the Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road",[10] the 11-minute "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", and the Marilyn Monroe tribute "Candle in the Wind".

"Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was inspired by memories of a Market Rasen pub Taupin frequented when younger.

The album was released on 5 October 1973 as a double LP, with cover art by illustrator Ian Beck depicting John stepping into a poster.

[22] These high resolution releases included the original stereo mixes, as well as 5.1 remixes produced and engineered by Greg Penny.

[25] In 2023, Joe Lynch of Billboard ranked the album cover, depicting the "bedazzled rocker – wearing ruby red platform heels and a bomber jacket with his name on it — step[ping] into a poster of the famed yellow brick road Dorothy and her coterie followed to the Emerald City of Oz," as the 74th best album cover of all time.

[27][28] All music is composed by Elton John; all lyrics are written by Bernie Taupin[29] According to the album's liner notes.