Irish songwriter, Ray Heffernan who co-authored the global hit “Angels” has blasted Robbie Williams, for labelling him a “fantasist”. Heffernan asked the former Take That star to publicly acknowledge his co-authorship of the track.
This all comes after Heffernan listened to a podcast hosted by Take That’s Gary Barlow about how “Angels” was written, which left the Irish songwriter out completely.
To compound things, Williams also branded Heffernan a “fantasist”.
Williams said, “I thought I’d better get down to it, figure out my voice, and whether I can actually do this. I was at my sister’s house in the garden with a pen and a paper and I thought, right then, I’d better come up with something..(so I wrote) ‘I sit and wait”.
“What part of this am I making up?”
“How can Robbie Williams call me a fantasist?” Heffernan exclaimed. He also added, “I have always maintained that as a young man, I wrote a song with Robbie, that went on to become his hit song ‘Angels’. My story of how that came about has never changed“.
Heffernan went to to repeat being reffered to as a fantasist by Williams, before asking, “My question is what part of this am I making up?”.
Heffernan said that he met Robbie Williams in a Dublin pub during Christmas 1996. It was that day that Heffernan said that he and Williams wrote “Angels” together.
That same evening, Ray invited Robbie back to his house so that his mother could hear the song they had just written.
Heffernan also explained the hysteria felt by his two sisters. They simply could not believe that Robbie Williams was in their house!
“One of the biggest thrills my two sisters, Mary and Vivienne ever got was waking up to find Robbie Williams in their house” explained Heffernan.
The songwriter added, “I remember him saying ‘Hi I’m Robbie’ to them he said introducing himself at breakfast. They shouted back ‘We know who you are’ before shooting back up the stairs to their put make- up on”.
Ray Heffernan said, “We didn’t waste any time, starting that night where I got the guitar out in my mum’s house and played him this song I had been working on”.
Heffernan’s £7,500 Deal:
Ray found out a few months later that Williams was planning to use “Angels” in his new album.
He explained, “I contacted Robbie’s management and his people said they would give me us an amount of money if I signed a waiver denouncing any rights I had to the song”.
This track went on to become William’s biggest selling song and one of the biggest tracks of the decade.
Ray accepted the deal for £7,500. “I accepted a deal worth £7,500 to pay me for ‘all and any creative input’ into the song”.
He added, “I have the legal documents to prove it. So I am not making this up. You could certainly call me a dreamer in life but not a fantasist. I have never lied about this story, and every part of it is true”.
In 2017, Williams also defended paying Heffernan £7,500. He said, “We could have gone to court, and it all would have been down to whether what way the judge wakes up that day out of bed. So I gave him some money, and he went away.”
