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