British singer-songwriter Elton John said he was so worried that he would miss the words of a candle in the wind he performed at Princess Diana's funeral to the point where he installed a screen that read the lyrics on the piano.
John, who has a friendship with Diana, praised the new version of the famous song after changing some of her lyrics, written by songwriter Bernie Tobin.
John's performance of the song at London's Westminster Abbey in 1997, after Diana was killed in a Paris car crash, was an emotional moment in the mass broadcast on television and watched by hundreds of millions around the world.
The song became popular in Britain afterwards. John and Tobin replaced “Goodbye Norma Jane” with “Goodbye Rose of England”.
Norma Jane is the real name of the late American actress Marilyn Monroe, who originally wrote the song in her honor.
"This was the first time I used a screen," John told an audience in London, "because I thought that if I sang 'Goodbye Norma Jane', I would be doomed to hang and tear apart.
“So just be careful, I used the initiation screen.”
The 72-year-old singer was speaking at the Royal Academy of Music, where he once studied, at a ceremony marking the publication of his autobiography “Elton John”.