Muse have revealed that they originally planned to record their new single 'Survival' as a duet with Elton John.

The Devon trio's new track is the official song of the 2012 Olympic Games and singer Matt Bellamy had previously said that it was firstly planned as a duet with an unnamed "good pianist".

However, in an interview with Los Angeles rock radio station KROQ, the singer has now let slip that it was actually Elton John and said that the 'Rocket Man' star was once employed as the musical director of the games before he fell out with the organisers.

Speaking about 'Survival', Bellamy said: "Believe it or not, Elton John gave us a call and wanted to write a song for the Olympics. At one time Elton John was actually the director of the music for the Olympics. He contacted us and we thought 'This is far out! We're going to do a song for the Olympics with Elton John?!'".

They continued: "So that's how the ball started rolling way back over a year ago. But then he pulled out of the Olympics. He didn't want to be involved anymore cause he fell out with the organisers so that left us with a half-baked idea. At that point we just let it go and carried on with making the album."

He went on: "And then the Olympics approached us again about the ending ceremony for us to play and that’s when we played them that song and they said they loved it and wanted to make it an official song of some kind."

from nme.com