At long last, Britney Spears has made her post-conservatorship return to music with “Hold Me Closer,” her and Elton John’s modernized rework of “Tiny Dancer.” John spoke about working with Spears in a new The Guardian interview, in which he notes there was some apprehension from Spears.
John said it took some convincing and reassuring for Spears to approve the song after it had been recorded:
“We had to get her to approve what she did. She’s been away so long – there’s a lot of fear there because she’s been betrayed so many times and she hasn’t really been in the public eye officially for so long. We’ve been holding her hand through the whole process, reassuring her that everything’s gonna be alright.
I’m so excited to be able to do it with her because if it is a big hit, and I think it may be, it will give her so much more confidence than she’s got already and she will realize that people actually love her and care for her and want her to be happy. That’s all anybody in their right mind would want after she went through such a traumatic time.”
He also noted, “Rehabilitation is such a wonderful thing for anybody, and I’m just crossing my fingers that this will restore her confidence in herself to get back into the studio, make more records, and realize that she is bloody good.”
Find the full interview here.