Elton John Played on a Metallica Cover. Then Metallica Played His Song Back to Him.

The camera catches Elton John and Bernie Taupin enjoying Metallica’s take on “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding.” It’s one of the details fans return to when they watch the Gershwin Prize performance. The two writers are close enough for the audience to see the tribute landing in real time.

Metallica played at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2024. John and Taupin were being honored together. The band chose the piece that opens Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, giving the tribute an instrumental passage that has to hold the room before a singer steps up to the microphone.

There was already a musical exchange between John and Metallica by then. For The Metallica Blacklist, John played piano on Miley Cyrus’s studio recording of “Nothing Else Matters.” The recording also brought together Yo-Yo Ma, Chad Smith, producer Watt and Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo. The lineup gave an already familiar ballad a different sound before Cyrus sang a word.

The Gershwin concert gave Metallica a chance to make a comparable choice with John’s music. The band kept the passage from instrumental to song, letting the opening build before James Hetfield entered. The guitar sound and the band’s attack make it clear who is playing before the camera returns to the two writers.

That prior collaboration adds a reason to look at the audience cutaways again. John knew the experience of playing inside somebody else’s familiar song. Here he could listen from the audience while a group with a distinct sound worked through one of his and Taupin’s.

Some fans singled out the moment John stands and applauds. The official recording shows him and Taupin responding enthusiastically. The camera gives the viewer a second perspective on a cover that otherwise could be appreciated for the arrangement alone.

The separate live performance of “Nothing Else Matters” on The Howard Stern Show puts Cyrus in front of Metallica themselves. John’s piano belongs to the Blacklist studio recording. The distinction makes the Stern version a useful comparison: you can hear how the same singer and melody work in a room with the original band.

John’s archival live performance also brings out what Metallica had to carry over when adapting his two-part piece. The first section establishes the scale of the arrangement, and the vocal lands after the room has already adjusted to that scale. Hearing that shape in John’s own live version makes the decision to preserve it at the tribute easier to appreciate.

The tribute’s best audience moment has its own musical backstory. John had helped reimagine a Metallica song. In Washington, Metallica played a John and Taupin piece in their own sound while the people who wrote it listened from the room.