Ronan: I was moved to tears by Rob’s song for Stephen
RONAN Keating has said that hearing Robbie Williams’s song about his late Boyzone bandmate, Stephen Gately, left him with ‘tears coming down my face’.
The track, called The Big Goodbye, appears on Keating’s new album, Twenty Twenty, as a duet with Williams.
Gately died as a result of an undiagnosed heart condition at the age of 33 in 2009.
Speaking on Channel 4, Keating said: ‘Last October was Stephen Gately’s ten-year anniversary and the boys and I were out celebrating Stephen’s life and honouring him.
‘I got home that night and there was an email from Rob saying: “I’ve seen you boys on the telly and I forgot that I wrote this song 10 years ago about Stepho and I put it away”.
‘I’m standing in the kitchen with tears coming down my face listening to this song.
‘I said: “Man we’ve got to do something” and he said “Let’s do it”. That song is on the album and it’s amazing.’
Keating, 43, and his wife Storm, 38, welcomed a daughter named Coco Knox Keating in March.
He said they were ‘blessed’ because she was still sleeping much of the time.
‘Four months old and she is still asleep – 13 hours she is sleeping,’ he said. ‘It’s ridiculous. We are so blessed,’ he said.
Keating, who lives in London, said the baby had not yet met his family in Ireland because of the lockdown.
‘The older kids, their brothers and sisters, have but no, my brothers and sisters and my dad, haven’t seen her yet unfortunately. Most of them are in Ireland so they just can’t travel.
‘So that has been difficult but thank God for FaceTime and Zoom and all these tools we have now to make it work.’
‘Man, we’ve got to do something’