Rick Astley’s contentment is joyous

The veteran popstar’s story strikes more than a musical chord.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

On a music festival stage, a popstar in a pink stages holds raised hands with his band.

Astley at Glastonbury. 2023.

aph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Last month was the wonderful Cheltenham Literature Festival and I flexed my low-brow muscles by going to see Matt Haig, Miranda Hart and Rick Astley. All three truly brilliant events.

But the last of these was the final event of the whole festival and the most surprising. I had no idea what to expect as I’ve never heard veteran popstar Rick talk or be interviewed. If I’m honest, I was probably being ever so slightly ironic in choosing to buy the ticket. I didn’t even know he’d written a book – his autobiography, Never.

He was absolutely sensational. The first question was “I’m sure you’ve been asked before to write your autobiography, so why now?” Answer, “Because I wanted to be completely honest and for that, I had to wait for my parents to die.” Oh, hang on. This is going to be a very different evening from the light entertainment rickrolling we were all anticipating.

He went on to describe a “very scary” childhood. He spoke with grace and kindness where he could, but he was also completely open about how “scary” his dad was. About living in a Portakabin at the age of 14. That music was his ticket out of that “scary” place. He used the word scary a lot. Which I found really moving. As a word, it vividly conjures up the fear felt by a child, which can get lost in the slightly abstract safeguarding language that we often hear people use when talking about abuse.

He told lots of fabulous stories about the early days with music producer Pete Waterman) and again, he spoke with respect (“they were just amazing musicians”) but also with candour. He dropped names with affection and disinterest in equal measure. We all know he was stratospherically famous – for a while – and then he wasn’t. And now he is again, at least a bit. He talked openly about all of that. He was articulate and funny; the kind of guy you’d have a great evening with, in the pub.

But most impressive was at the end, with tears rolling down his cheeks, he said, in his rich Lancashire accent “music was my way out of that scary place. Not my ticket to sex, drugs and a Ferrari. I wasn’t interested in all that. What I wanted to find was safety, to build my own family and have a stable, safe home life.” Wow. And he’s achieved it. He met his wife in 1987.

Funnily enough, the day before I went to see Rick I found a meme on my Insta feed – it was putting the words of “Never gonna give you up” into the mouth of Jesus. I don’t think Rick Astley is a Christian and he certainly isn’t the Messiah – but there is real joy to be found in an artist whose music celebrates what is good and beautiful in human relationships. And not just in a soft lens, infatuation dream-state ballad. He’s in it for the long haul.

In the words of the blurb on the back of the book, “Never” is a “portrait of truth, artistic evolution and the astounding power of contentment.” Now that’s rock ‘n’ roll.

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Assisted dying

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Death & life

29 November 2024

2 min read

Assisted dying: truly a black Friday

The UK takes a step into the bleak unknown.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Four MPs stand at a table with heads bowed.

Assisted dying vote tellers acknowledge the result.

Parliament TV.

So, the House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted suicide. When the result was announced there was an audible gasp in the House. There were no cries of victory or whoops of delight. Maybe it was a sense of the gravity of what the MPs had just done. Presumably there was some relief for those who had advocated a change to the law but for those who were against it, a deep, deep sadness.

The arguments have been rehearsed many times over the past few weeks, although to be honest it feels like this debate has been extraordinarily rushed, given the gravity of the step we have just taken. Of course, the bill now needs to be scrutinised and voted on further, and it may yet fail.

Of course, not every Christian is against a change to the law. And I do feel the strength of the argument for individuals in extreme pain as death approaches. Yet the more I have thought about it, the more convinced I have become that this is a grave error. I worry that as we all grow towards old age, this decision will open the gates to an intolerable choice. Numerous people, especially the elderly and confused, those who go through depressive episodes or whose lives are in a mess and need encouragement and support not the suggestion of an easy way out, will be tempted to take a drastic step that before, would not have been possible.

Surely one of the best defences against suicide is simply to make it unthinkable, so it's not really an option, however bad things get. Once it becomes not only an option but even in some cases recommended, we have opened a door that should have remained closed. As someone said about the progress of MAID in Canada, what started as occasional permission gradually became a viable option, and now risks turning into an obligation.

Whatever happens, there is need for further vigilance - to protect the vulnerable, to hold those who advocated for change to the safeguards they put in place, to keep pushing for investment in palliative care. And as far as possible, to keep this as an option for the very few.

Yet those things seem much harder to do now. If life is the gift of God; if the attempt to control everything, even our last moments in the mystery of death is a pathological mistake of modernity; if exalting personal autonomy over all other considerations is a denial of our interdependence; if being cared for by others in our last moments is more important than the assertion of personal choice, then this seems to be a moment when as a society we have embraced death, not life. It does feel truly a black Friday.