“We’re pulling back the curtain, huh? Well, we might as well pull it back all the way, right?”
-Someone, I dunno.
OK, so, Better Man has just come out in the cinemas and it’s one of those weird biopics, I guess, whereby our subject is a fucking monkey. Yes, Robbie Williams, displaying why he is such a lunatic, is the only chimp in this movie, whereas everyone else is human. It’s an original idea and it, in my honest opinion, is a fucking cool idea.
I need to see this movie, not just because I am a Robbie Williams fan, but because, I want to learn more about a person, who, whether he knows it or not (Spoiler alert: He doesn’t.) probably helped to save my life. Now, I am not the sort of person who wants to make everything about me, but on this occasion, please indulge me as I pull back a very personal curtain.
April 18th 1997: My mother’s birthday. A day that should have been one for celebration, it’s a birthday, right? My mum was born in 1951, so you can probably guess where this one’s going. You know where she spent that day? Surrounded by family members congratulating her for a job well done putting up with this fourteen year old idiot? No, she was in a hospital bed, fighting for her life.
24 hours, time we all probably take for granted. Most of us spend eight hours of that at work, making money to keep a roof over our heads. That leaves what, sixteen hours, eight of which, if you’re a healthy, well adjusted human, you spend asleep. So we’re left with eight hours, and what do we do with that time? I’ll tell you this now, I took those eight hours for granted. If I could have all of those twenty-four hours back, I would, in a heartbeat…
April 19th 1997: My mum passed away, she became the angel she was always destined to become. Now, if you’ve read a couple of my latest blogs, particularly the Frasier one, you’ll acknowledge that most of my best memories of those first fourteen years involved my mum. That day took all of that away from me. Now before I get too maudlin, and before you think I’m gonna throw out the invites to Leigh Gabriel’s pity party, let me tell you this, this blog is not meant to make you pity me. People have it sooo much worse than me. I got 14 years with that beautiful woman, some people don’t even get that. Believe me, I’m grateful for the time I got.
I was crushed. Everything that I thought was important in life, suddenly became less important, studies being the main casualty. I started playing truant from school. I started disrespecting my father in ways that he didn’t deserve (I would lose him in 2000 as well, another regret.) and, for lack of a better term, I became a jerk. I’d stopped caring. As a forty-two year old man, I look back and realise what an absolute asshole I was, but in 1997, the fourteen year old boy I was, didn’t care, life owed me a living. Let me tell you all now, that was not the outlook to have. I could have been so much more in life, now I’m a binman. If I have one precautionary tale to tell everyone at this point of the blog, encourage your children to make the best of their lives, strive for education, strive for betterment, it all makes sense in the end. Thank you for making it this far into my TED Talk.
Now, you’re probably wondering, why after all this bullshit and all this pity, where Robbie comes in…
December 1st 1997: Every question I had been asking, suddenly had an answer and in the plot twists of all plot twists, it came in the form of a song. Music has always been important to me, it tells stories that no TV show or movie could ever tell, and most of that is because, music can be interpreted into whatever meaning you need at the time. For me, Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers and Ray Heffernan accidentally gave me all the answers I needed.
“And through it all, she offers me protection, a lot of love and affection, whether I’m right or wrong.”
I mean, c’mon! Whether you like him or not, that lyric means something, and it meant everything to me. Through Robbie’s lyrics, I began to learn and perhaps, understand that even though her physical form had left this Earth, she was still looking over me, keeping me safe. It might have not been the message he intended, but it was the message I needed. Things started making sense and I knew that, above me, there was an angel, looking out for me.
Sometimes, we should get that message straight away, that our parents never leave us, and life can be so much better, but when you’re a fourteen-year old boy, sometimes things don’t make sense. Would it have led to something so much darker? I dunno. All I’m gonna say is, I’m glad it didn’t lead to much darker things. If it did, I wouldn’t be writing this blog, as a father to three wonderful children. There is always a better way, and I’m glad I found that better way.
It could have ended so differently, I could have ended up a drug addled recluse, could have ended up dead way before his time. Do I owe that all to Robbie Williams? Of course not, but I still owe him some thanks, he gave me that comfort as a fourteen-year old boy who needed that comfort.
We’re gonna fast forward to 2019, cos I’m done with the depressing shit. I saw him live in 2019 in Hyde Park, London and I know he didn’t see it, ‘cos in a crowd of 65,000 people, you ain’t gonna see one man crying his eyes out because of one of your songs, but at that moment in time, I was thanking Robbie Williams for helping to save my life.
Now we fast forward to 2025, and his biopic comes out, with him as a chimp and I’m writing this blog, very much alive and ready to go and watch that movie and line his pockets. Plot spoiler, I’d line his pockets, every fucking day of the week. He unknowingly did something for me that, on my eventual deathbed, I will never ever forget.
Thank you, Robert Peter Williams, and thank you, Jennifer Anne Gabriel, for being the angel in my life.
“When I come to call, she won't forsake me “
@fredhincanada @dicentra @car_a_carn @rare @solostella @eminerale
