Sam Fender has released his Sir Elton John-featuring track Talk To You.
The heartwarming tune, which has become a live favourite, was recorded in the sessions for the Geordie star’s album People Watching, which won the prestigious Mercury Prize overnight (16.10.25).
In a statement about the song, Sam said: “Talk To You was written during the People Watching sessions at British Grove.
It’s a song about the end of a long relationship – about the regret, the mistakes and the lessons that come with it. It’s that feeling of losing your best friend and coming to terms with that.”
He continued: “I was playing around with the riff and thought what I need is a really good pianist and then hmmm, I wonder who I can call? And of course, who better than Elton John.”
Elton, 78, commented: “Sam was writing and recording in a studio in West London and called to say he’d written a song with a piano riff that he thought would sound great with me playing it. I couldn’t resist, and it was so much fun playing it for him.
“I truly love Sam. He’s been a friend for many, many years and it’s incredible to see him grow into being a truly world class artist.”
Talk To You is set to feature on a deluxe edition of People Watching – and Sam explained that the collaboration with the music legend was a long time in the making.
Speaking on Elton John’s Rocket Hour on Apple Music 1, the 31-year-old artist said: “It took three years to make the whole thing, and I had so many songs and I basically had a whole other albums worth of stuff by the time we’d finished People Watching.
“And to be honest with you, Talk to You and a couple of the songs off this deluxe, this happens every time. I wish this song and there’s Main Street and there’s a couple of different tunes from the deluxe that I would’ve preferred to have probably had on the standard, and this is one of them, but this happens every time.”
He added: “So when we started this one, I don’t know what it was, it was like I had this one piano, I had that piano part, which is the main riff.
“And, obviously, we were at Chiswick at the time. And I was like, ‘Oh, I would love to get somebody better at piano than me.’ I was like, ‘I wonder who I know. Who can I call?'”
The expanded collection will be released on December 5, on CD an vinyl, with eight additional tracks, four of which were released as part of Sam’s Record Store Day vinyl EP Me And The Dog.
They include Fortuna’s Wheel and The Treadmill, and Rein Me In with Olivia Dean.