Crocodile Rock
by Elton John
- 152
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 63
- Danceability
- 8
- Acousticness
Elton John played the Farfisa organ riff that drives "Crocodile Rock", and he sang every vocal on it, falsetto backing parts included. Davey Johnstone played guitars, Dee Murray bass and Nigel Olsson drums. The band recorded it in the summer of 1972 at the Château d'Hérouville in France.
The spark was Daddy Cool, an Australian band John discovered on his 1972 tour there. Their hit "Eagle Rock" sold a million copies and held number one for a record ten weeks. John was greatly impressed. A photo in the album packaging shows Bernie Taupin wearing a "Daddy Who?" badge. The lyrics look back at early rock and roll, with a nod to "Rock Around the Clock". A 1974 lawsuit by the composer of "Speedy Gonzales" claimed that chords from that song had been used. The parties settled.
The single reached number one in the US on February 3, 1973 and stayed there for three weeks. John brushed off the charge that it was derivative, saying he wanted a record about all the things he grew up with and that of course it was a rip-off. In 2021 he said it was written as a kind of joke, that he no longer enjoyed playing it, and that he would never play it again once his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour ended.
Crocodile Rock runs at 152 BPM, the tempo of hard techno, punk and fast rock. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.58 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 395 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.