Shame

Robbie Williams reconciles with Gary Barlow

Robbie Williams started his career in a boy band called Take That. They were the biggest British boy band in history until One Direction came along.¹ A large part of their success was the songwriting prowess of member Gary Barlow, who also sang most of the leads. Part of Williams’ problem with Nigel Martin-Smith, the group's manager, was that he wouldn’t let him contribute to the songwriting. Barlow made substantially more than his bandmates because of the publishing rights. Williams felt that Barlow didn’t respect him, essentially. And Barlow had a big problem with Williams’ drug addiction causing him to flake out on the band. What else went down they haven’t talked about.

So when Williams left Take That in 1995 for his own solo career, the two men he resented most were Martin-Smith and Barlow. He was quite vocal about it. Time passes. In 2008, the remaining members of Take That, reformed a few years earlier, were in LA mixing their album The Circus. Williams was now living there. So Williams and Barlow had what they call a “big chat” and cleared the air.

This song is the aftermath, written in about an hour according to them. It appreared on Williams’ greatest hits compilation In And Out of Consciousness in 2010 and is produced by the legendary Trevor Horn. It was the only single released from the album and it went to #2 in the UK. Overall though, it didn’t perform as well as their history would have hoped.

I’ll be honest. I’m not that impressed with the song. I much prefer the song they also wrote together that follows on the album, Heart and I. But I need to talk about the video.

Again Vaughan Arnell is at the helm. It’s shot in LA, with the mountains in Malibu.² What makes it so much fun is that it has Brokeback Mountain vibes. They look at each other longingly across a dancefloor while they are both dancing with women, they eye each other walking down the stree, they go fishing, take their shirts off, and then go running up a mountain. They then get to the top of the cliffside, look waaaay down at the water, and decide not to jump.

Interestingly, I can’t find the official video on Williams’ YT channel. Then again, 31 of the videos in his official video playlist are hidden so it may have to do with Canadian broadcast rights. Thankfully fans have posted it.

Here’s a very cute behind the scenes vid of the making of the video, which is on Williams’ channel. In it, he says “They better not be making us gay.” Was he being cheeky? Or was he actually upset with how it turned out? Both of them take pains to point out how straight they are during the shoot so they must have known how it was going to look.

Enjoy your song of the day!

ETA:

Musings Of A Broken Record

did a great piece on this song recently, focusing on Gary Barlow and the history of Take That. Recommended reading.

That Time Robbie Williams & Gary Barlow Recorded A Duet Together After Not Speaking For Years.

1. A case could be made that it was The Beatles because their sound is based on harmonies and different singers taking lead. Others will argue that because they played instruments and didn’t dance they don’t fit the definition.

2. Most likely it burned during the recent wildfire.