Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny) as a tribute to John Lennon, who had been assassinated in December 1980 outside the Dakota apartment building in New York City. Jeff Porcaro of Toto played drums on the recording. The song begins: "What happened here? As the New York sunset disappeared, I found an empty garden among the flagstones there. Who lived here? He must have been a gardener who cared a lot, who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop. And now it all looks strange. It's funny how one insect can damage so much grain."
The "Garden" of the title is mainly a reference to all the flowers left at the site of Lennon's murder – but it also refers to Madison Square Garden, where, on November 28, 1974, "surprise guest" John Lennon joined Elton John on stage. It was Lennon's first live performance in two years and would turn out to be his last live performance ever. They sang three songs together: their current duet single Whatever Gets You Thru The Night (which, two weeks earlier, was the number-one single in the US), followed by Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and I Saw Her Standing There, which Lennon introduced by saying, "I’d like to thank Elton and the boys for having me on tonight. We tried to think of a number to finish off with so I can get out of here and be sick, and we thought we’d do a number of an old, estranged fiancé of mine, Paul. This is one I never sang. It's an old Beatle number."
Elton seldom sings Empty Garden in concert. Lennon was his friend and performing the song causes a lot of pain. Here is a performance from 1999:
