Ed Sheeran and Elton John tease Merry Christmas collab with Love Actually tribute

Elton John and Ed Sheeran have teased their Christmas song collaboration by recreating an iconic British film moment, much to the delight of movie buffs everywhere. 

The talented musicians announced the release of their upcoming song, 'Merry Christmas', in the most festive of ways—a re-enactment of the famous doorstep scene from Love Actually. The news comes just two months after it was revealed Elton John was heartbroken over being forced to reschedule his tour due to a 'horrific' injury. 

Taking to his Twitter on Monday (29 November), Elton shared the exciting update on the highly-anticipated track, which was confirmed by Ed Sheeran in October, with his 1m followers. 

"Just under a year ago, I called @edsheeran to see if he wanted to make a Christmas single with me, and now it’s nearly here!" the Grammy award-winning artist wrote. The post included a short clip of Ed Sheeran arriving at Elton's door to deliver a message via a series of handwritten notes—à la that unforgettable cue card scene between Mark and Juliet in Love Actually (check out our list of the best Christmas movies on Amazon Prime 2021 if you've no idea what we're talking about).

In the wintery video, Ed unveils several cards which gradually reveal the following sentences: “Hello. Last Christmas, I received a call from my mate Elton John and he told me we should do a Christmas song. And I replied, yeah, maybe in 2022. But I actually wrote the chorus that day, and here we are. Our Christmas song, ‘Merry Christmas’, is out this Friday… It has sleigh bells—a lot of them.”

Elton also confirmed that all proceeds made from 'Merry Christmas', which will drop on Friday, 3 December, will go towards the Elton John Aids Foundation and the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music foundation. 

Ed dropped the news that he and Elton had recorded a Christmas song together earlier this month, spilling major details on the superstar collaboration with US talk show host Jimmy Fallon. 

"I’ve always been quite against it [a Christmas song]," he admitted during an appearance on the Tonight Show. "Not that I don’t like Christmas, I love Christmas, but in terms of doing a Christmas song, you need to chuck the kitchen sink at it." 

The Castle on the Hill singer went on to explain how he came to agree to the collaboration by establishing one important condition. 

"I said to Elton, I don't want to do a Christmas song unless we're going in," he recalled. "Unless it's like sleigh bells, ding dog... it needs to be a proper Christmas song." 

Ed also revealed that there had been some confusion during the development of the song, especially over its undeniably simple title. 

"We write it, and I title it 'Merry Christmas', and I'm like, 'We're going to have to change that title because there are probably loads of songs called 'Merry Christmas'. And I went on Spotify and I typed in 'Merry Christmas'—nothing...There's not a song called 'Merry Christmas'," he said. "It baffled me."