Robbie Williams opens up about his depression when writing 'Feel'
Apr 1, 2025
Dev chats to Robbie Williams about the new Better Man album and how he felt re-recording his iconic songs. Robbie also opens up about the true meaning of his song 'Feel' and the original writing processes of some of his biggest hits.
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0:00
When I wrote Feel, I was the most depressed that I've ever been
0:05
Welcome back to Heart's Evening Show. How are you? I'm good, mate. I'm sorry about that. I am jet-lagged. I've been on a plane. I've had COVID
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but now you are part of the medicine for my soul. It's lovely to clasp eyes on you once again
0:21
Thank you so much. Thanks for being colour-coordinated as well with the show. You're very on brand
0:25
It's what I do. I think ahead. I love that. Well, you've mentioned you're incredibly busy, Robbie, but I thought as soon as I've got your number and you haven't blocked me yet, we check in and see how you're doing, see how things are going
0:36
What's a typical evening like for Robbie Williams? My safe zone is my bed. If I'm out of my bed, I am not in my safe zone
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So a typical evening will be me being in bed with my wife and the kids watching TV
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to be honest with you i'm only out of bed if i'm working so there's a lot of bed happening
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a lot of bed do you have like a really good setup then have you got one of those beds that um
1:08
that lifts it you've got a remote to like lift it up no no no but i do have a mattress that feels
1:14
like jesus made it i love that well we're very excited about your new album better man robbie
1:21
we get to hear some of our favorite Robbie Williams songs reimagined can you tell me about
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the experience of recreating some of these songs was it is it a bit like looking at old photographs
1:32
did it did it bring back a lot of good memories I'll be really honest with you Dev it's it's admin
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it just I got to get this done you know because I always in the future I never in the past but this project for the film was just too important and too massive not to give it my all So during the process I like OK let do this
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But then the finished product is where I then gleam all of my jollies from when I then listen to it and go, wow
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okay so we've reimagined these songs we've bettered most of the songs um so i'm glad i put
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my all in but also at the same time it is it's admin the finished result is an admin it's special
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we've picked some of our favorites here at heart and i thought it'd be amazing to hear about
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But, well, we've all got our own take on your music, but I would love to hear what some of these songs mean to you
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Like what comes to mind when I mention some of these songs. So first up, feel. First thing that comes to mind
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This will bring it down. But when I wrote feel, I was the most depressed that I've ever been
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And I guess I was newly sober. And when you are newly sober, you're taking away your medicine
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but then when you take away your medicine you're left with all the symptoms and you're left with
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why you became ill in the first place so definitely feel is me trying to manifest
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a better life for myself in fact the chorus is I just want to feel really a love in the home that
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I live in and I manifested it incredible let me entertain you uh let me entertain you
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is probably my modus operandi And thank God that I wrote that song when I wrote that song with those words
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because it kind of set me up for who I am and what I do and what is my USP. My unique selling
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point is I want to entertain you. And weirdly, not many people in my position doing the job that I do
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set out to do that and uh you know it's like i i want to be like this year i'm i'm on tour
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i want to be the best entertainer on the planet i've got a couple more that i'd really love to
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hear how you feel about um she's the one incredibly emotional song amazing uh new version by the way
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on the album as well but what does that song mean to you when i went to rehab in 1997 there was one
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album that I kept playing over and over again. And it was an album called Egyptology by a band
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called World Party. Carl Wallinger was the lead singer and the writer for the band. And unfortunately
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it passed away like last year or the year before. And it was my, the album meant so much to me. And
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I love this song on there. She's the one. I had nothing to do with the writing of that. But I
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I recorded it and put it out there. And then Carl, God bless him, hated the fact that I'd recorded his song, like was disgusted with me doing it
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And it's it. I was very sensitive to the fact that somebody that I regard so highly regarded me so lowly
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So I had to come to terms with the fact and I have that every time that i used to sing that song i used to think of the original writer not liking me or or not rating me in any way so it i had
5:33
a difficult relationship with it now i don't have a difficult relationship with it at all
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i've gone back to where i was when i first fell in love with it incredible and lastly rock dj
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uh rock dj world-class silliness you know it's um the secret of that song is that
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it's based on a not i won't say a sample because we didn't use a sample but there's a
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barry white song called ecstasy go and check it out barry white or the people that wrote barry
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white songs sold their publishing to a man that lives in london and uh we had to go around to see
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this man to beg him to at least give us some publishing on that song and i think that i've got
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10 of that song now i wrote the silly rap and i wrote the silly chorus and uh what you should
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morally get for writing the melody and the lyric to a whole song is 50 but i because this man
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didn't want to give me 50% I have 10% of that song
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Robbie thank you so much for talking to us we've got our fingers crossed
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that this is going to be your 15th number one album we're going to find out
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on Sunday on the EE official Big Top 40 Robbie Williams we'll see you again soon
7:02
we love you take care God bless Deb you take care of yourself
#Celebrities & Entertainment News
#Depression
#Music & Audio


