Rick Astley reflects on lasting impact of his biggest hit as he picks up Silver Clef award

Rick Astley says ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ is part of him as he wins Silver Clef award.Credit: The Independent

Transcript

00:00That song is a bit of an oddball, because obviously it was my first song.

00:05It's been downhill ever since, because it was my biggest song.

00:09It's just, it's really difficult to put it into words,

00:13because it's been part of my kind of DNA of my life,

00:17but also my family's, a lot of my friends.

00:21It's sort of been there for most of my life,

00:24because I'm going to be 60 next year, on my word,

00:27and it was released when I was 21.

00:28So it's been there for, like, two-thirds,

00:31it's been there for pretty much all my adult life,

00:33and so it's just sort of ingrained in me.

00:35If you cut me open, it says never going to give you up in the middle.

00:38And it's like, it's really hard sometimes to put that into any kind of sense.

00:44I just feel grateful.

00:46I just feel lucky that I've got a tune that every now and again pops up somewhere,

00:50therefore we've got a billion streams, you know.

00:53And again, I think it makes me look at the time that I had my moment when I started,

00:58and just think, I'm kind of super grateful that I am the age I am,

01:03and I started in the 80s, because we didn't have social media,

01:06we didn't even have the internet.

01:07And I think things were a little bit softer and fuzzier back then.