Robbie Wanted More
The music video for Feel by Robbie Williams is a brilliant early 2000’s existential voyage. It’s about searching for love and the fear of wasting life. It’s a question about our modern age.
You can still hear Robbie’s music in the soft echoes of a commuters headphones or in a big Tesco sound system. Angels at Karaoke. Sometimes seen as cheesy, but he had a tight grasp on the trials and tribulations of living in our time, whether in Rock DJ or Millennium. Maybe that’s why the fact he never took himself too seriously, and the relatively simple and catchy message he deployed made him one of the biggest selling artists in the history of the UK.
The video for Feel opens with Robbie riding through American countryside, in a denim jacket with a Union Jack on it. He’s searching for something or someone, in little town America.
He then spots a beautiful woman in the distance (Daryl Hannah). She ignores him at first and stands him up. After some persistence she finally lets him into her car where they embrace. Soon after, they’re together on a date in a cafe and around the ranch. However, this romantic ecstasy is soon too much for Robbie. He appears tedious of the affair. His world slowly crumbles. His fellow cowboy’s can’t ride their horses anymore and his girl drives straight past him. He’s alone again, before it even began.
The video was speaking on something we experience today. The endless swipe right society, doom scroll world. Always another option, always looking for more. “Before I’ve arrived I see myself coming” he sings, he’s on the search for more again, before he’s even able to enjoy what he has. Robbie is nostalgic for the love he was never able to find. He’s still looking for “Real love”. Will this search ever end? This is the paradigm of the music video. All while he worries about wasted time and if God is “laughing at his plans”.
Robbie Williams was having existential doubt during the pre social media era, whilst being the biggest star in the country. Questioning his ability to be in touch with reality, his ability to feel real love (What is real love vs love?) and what it all means under the eyes of God. For many a generic pop song, for me, a stark philosophical commentary. How do we solve the questions of human connection. How can we trust our feelings? How do we know when enough is enough? Is love real, across the plains of space and time? Robbie is searching for the perpetually unfounded lure of romance. Maybe the one hope of the music video is that despite Robbie not finding what he is searching for on the ranch, despite it all, he carries on looking.