Sir Elton John was "blown away" to be sampled by The Weeknd.
Sir Elton John
The 72-year-old singer is a big fan of the 'Starboy' hitmaker and he was overjoyed when a "surprise" he'd been teased about turned out to be a snippet of his own track 'Your Song' featured on The Weeknd's own 'Scared To Live' on his new album 'After Hours'.
Elton told Apple Music's Zane Lowe: "I love him. I always have done and you can tell by the videos for the new album as well that it's kind of ... 'Blinding Lights' is such an 80's-type record and it hits the nail on the head so perfectly, blending it with Abel's sound.
"I saw him at an Oscar party after the Oscars and he's always been such a sweet and lovely humble man. And he told me then, he said, 'I got a surprise for you on this record.' And I went, 'Really?' He said, 'Yeah.' And the surprise is that he's borrowed a bit of 'Your Song.' 'I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind,' for the 'Scared to Live' track.
"I'm so blown away I mean just to be part of his record. For someone my age and as someone who loves what he does, I'm so thrilled and I just love him."
The 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' singer thinks The Weeknd - whose real name is Abel Tesfaye - is very different to any other artist.
He said: "I just think ... I was watching a couple of things this morning that were the same old stuff, the rap stuff and I was thinking, 'Good old Abel, he's making music. He's making proper music.' "
Meanwhile, Elton recently postponed some dates from the North American leg of his farewell tour due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and he's not expecting to be back on stage until after the summer.
He said: "I don't think realistically speaking that we, artists, can expect to go back on the road."
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