Nobody Wins

On The Fox. Single released in May 1981. Hit #21. While driving through St. Tropez, France, Elton heard Janic Prevost's version of "Nobody Wins" ("I Want Tenderness" or "J'Veux d'la Tendresse") on a car radio. He was so overcome that he pulled to the side of the road to listen. He asked Gary Osborne to write an English verse to Prevost's haunting melody. Osborne wrote about Elton's unloving relationship with his father. "When a mild man says to you, 'My father never liked me,' you can't be unmoved," said Osborne, who considers the song among his best.

Lyrics:
They must have loved each other once But that was many years ago And by the time I came along Things were already going wrong I felt the pain in their pretence The side they tried hard not to show But through the simple eyes of youth It wasn't hard to see the truth

And in the end nobody wins When love begins to fall apart And it's the innocent who pay When broken dreams get in the way The game begins, the game nobody wins

They must have loved each other once Before the magic slipped away And as their life became a lie What love remained began to die I used to hide beneath the sheets I prayed that time would find a way But with the passing of the years I watched as laughter turned to tears

We used to love each other once With all the passion we possessed But people change as time goes by Some feelings grow while others die But if we learn from what we see And face the truth while we still can Then though the passion may be gone Some kind of love can still live on