The Dean of Westminster personally appealed to Buckingham Palace to ensure Sir Elton John performed at Princess Diana's funeral, released files reveal.
The Very Rev Wesley Carr wrote that doing so would be "imaginative and generous" to the millions feeling "personally bereaved".
Sir Elton, who was a friend of Diana's, performed a reworked version of Candle In The Wind at the service in 1997.
But papers from the National Archives suggest a backup plan was in place.
Sir Elton's lyricist Bernie Taupin had just rewritten the song about Marilyn Monroe - Candle In The Wind - with new lyrics about Princess Diana, retitled England's Rose.
In a note to a senior member of the royal household, Dean Wesley Carr wrote that the song was being played "all the time" on the radio.
The dean recognised it would be unconventional, but urged "boldness", and the "inclusion of something of the modern world that the princess represented".
Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.
Her death prompted an unprecedented outpouring of public grief, with hundreds of thousands of bouquets left at her Kensington Palace home.