Mika will never forget the "wild, dangerous, horrific and beautiful" moment he was told to say goodbye to his sister after she was impaled on railings

He told the Daily Telegraph magazine: "I looked at her, she was so vulnerable, her body there for all to see. These tall Victorian buildings all around us, with silhouettes of so many people watching from the windows.

"The lights of the cars and the ambulances flashing blue and there was no sound except for the motors. It was a communion of feeling. It felt the closest thing to a prayer I've experienced. It will now be written into my mind and body that that's why a prayer is: wild, dangerous, horrific... and beautiful.

"I didn't realise how beautiful it was until I wrote 'Paloma', 'I found you fighting in the darkness but there was beauty in that too.' "

The 'Grace Kelly' hitmaker rushed to his sister's aid without even getting dressed as soon as he was told what had happened.

He recalled: "I only live 250m away. Her neighbour called me at 4am. I arrived barefoot in my boxer shorts. Seeing somebody like that... I can't tell you. She was facing up at the sky. She said: 'Mika, I'm fine, just get these people away and let me get up.'"

Mika recently admitted he'd been considering taking time out from his career as his mother has a "very aggressive" brain tumour.

He said: "During the last two years, every two months I thought the problem was over, but it wasn't. Now she is suffering a lot for a very serious condition, a very aggressive brain tumour. I have always loved deeply my mother, she has always been an inspiration to me. To see her in this situation, so fragile, it makes me feel terrible.

"She doesn't want me to go visit her, she says I have to keep working, go on tour and so on. She says she follows me from where she is."