Island Girl

The harmony is three-chord simplicity — I, IV, V in Bb major — which concentrates all expressive weight on rhythm and instrumentation rather than chord movement. Davey Johnstone's banjo and slide guitars, Ray Cooper's Caribbean percussion, and James Newton Howard's Mellotron add timbral variety that compensates for harmonic straightforwardness. The song is a textbook example of groove-first construction: the syncopated piano displacement of familiar chords creates more energy than a harmonically complex progression would.

Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics around a Jamaican woman working in New York City, pursued by a man who wants to take her back to the island. Elton John set the words to a syncopated Caribbean-inflected piano riff that became the track's backbone. It was written for Rock of the Westies, John's follow-up to Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, and recorded with a largely new band lineup.

Released in September 1975 as the lead single from Rock of the Westies, 'Island Girl' blends Caribbean percussion with Elton John's hammering piano and a tight syncopated groove. It spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, selling over a million copies in the United States. The track stands out in John's catalogue for its rhythmic displacement and the marimba work of Ray Cooper, which gives it a texture unlike almost anything else in his discography.