“Daniel” is a song by British singer and songwriter Elton John. According to John’s longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin (who wrote the lyrics of this song), he was inspired to write the lyrics of “Daniel” after reading an article published in Time magazine about the touching story of several Vietnam War veterans who back home to the United States in the hope of enjoying some quiet and peace of mind (a normal life). However, when most of them got home, they were bombarded with a great deal of attention, which they greatly disliked.

');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; })(); You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Elton John's Daniel at Lyrics.org.

According to Taupin, he picked the story and wrote it from the point of a view of a younger brother. The younger brother misses his disabled war veteran older brother named Daniel who travels far away from home in order to get away from the attention he was receiving at home.

Taupin explained that the lyrics of “Daniel” tell the story of a soldier (Daniel) who returns to a town in Texas after fighting in the Vietnam War. In the small Texas town, the soldier is praised as a hero and given so much attention. However, he finds the hero treatment and the excessive attention given him very uncomfortable because all he wants is to go back to his normal and quiet life in his farm.

Owing to the extraordinary attention he receives from his people, he decides to travel to Spain. Hence the famous line “Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane”.

But why Spain? Taupin chose Spain because it rhymes perfectly with the word “plane”.

According to Taupin, in writing this song, his main goal was to come up with something that “was sympathetic” to the soldiers who came back home from the Vietnam War.

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Contrary to popular belief, the verse Elton deleted from the song didn’t contain any significant content that gave the song another meaning different from the meaning explained at the beginning of the post. According to Taupin himself, the missing verse which Elton got rid of didn’t say or explain anything that the other parts of the song didn’t do.

It is a soft rock song.

The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974. However, the song lost to “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder.

Some of the most notable covers of this song include that of the American vocal group Wilson Phillips in 1991 and English singer Sam Smith in 2018.