Posted by Ren about Joe: I first met Joe when I was 8 years old, my friend Josh said I had to meet this guy, so we both walked over to his, it took about 10 minutes from my house. I was greeted by this kid covered head to toe in freckles, he grinned at us, climbed onto the back of his sofa and screamed “Swanton Bomb!” then front flipped off the top and landed right onto his back on a stone floor. He lay still for a moment, twitched a few times, then got up, grinned at us, brushed himself off, and did it again. This was Joe. He’d do anything to make people laugh. He ended up becoming one of my best friends. He was there when we stole our first cigarettes out of his mum’s pack, way too young. He was there when I had my first kiss, with a girl twice my size on the back of the 42 bus. He was there when I first got so drunk I threw up in the woods after drinking as much White Lightning Cider as we could. I was there when he did his first backflip on skates, and saw him do a 720 off of the pier cave, that moment became legendary. Joe was the funny one in our friend group, he’d make us laugh till it hurt. No one had a bad word to say about him. It was impossible not to like him. Usually we put celebrities, athletes and actors on pedestals, turn them into role models and admire them from a far. The person I admired was Joe. He knew every word to the songs I’d write, we’d get drunk at parties and they’d be singing along as loud as they could. It gave me a lot of confidence back then. On Christmas Eve 2010 I was sitting in a pub with Joe, he’d been feeling low after a couple of consecutive break ups. He tried to check himself into a mental health outpatient facility a few weeks earlier but they turned him away because he didn’t have an appointment. He turned to me and said that sometimes he wished he could just walk into the sea and keep walking. He said it in a kind of half joking throw away comment type of way, then took a sip of his drink, walked over to the juke box and put Dig by Incubus on. If I knew that was the last time I’d see Joe I’d have hugged him, told him how much I loved him, how much I looked up to him, how much we all loved him, and I wouldn’t have left that pub. I didn’t know that, so I finished my drink, said Happy Christmas and left. Two nights after Christmas I got woken up by a phone call at 3am, it was my friend Ella. She told me Joe was on the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the main land to the Isle of Anglesey where we lived. He’d been on the phone to her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. I pulled on my clothes as fast as I could and started running toward the bridge. It was up a hill. I lived about a ten minute walk away, I could run it in five. As I ran I started dialling then redialing his number. The line was busy, which was a good sign, it meant he was still on the phone to someone. As I got about halfway, the busy tone changed. It told me the line was out of service. I got a sinking feeling and picked up my speed. I arrived to the bridge minutes after I left my house. It was deafeningly quiet. I was the first person to arrive. I got there probably about 2 minutes too late. Joe’s body was never found. Initially we refused to believe he was gone. The coastguard came out that night, with boats, and helicopters. Me and my friends spent the next 10 days putting up missing posters everywhere we could, walking up and down beaches with flashlights, getting about 3 hours sleep a night. When you’re walking up and down a beach with a torch when its dark everything looks like a body. We still haven’t found Joe. As his birthday came around, I wrote a song, Freckled Angels, a song I dedicated to Joe which I sang in front of his friends and family. A charity football match was put on for him, raising money for the RNLI where I won two bottles of wine in a raffle, I drank them both as quickly as I could, naturally, turned to my friend and probably slurred something along the lines of “This is the last time I ever drink” That was 12 years ago, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since. My first ever album I named Freckled Angels in tribute of one of the best people I ever knew. Skip forward some years. I’d been sitting on this song I wrote a few years ago. It always felt a little incomplete. It was going to be my next release, but I was dreading it because of this feeling of incompletion. I decided, very last minute, to do something about it. I sat by my piano, and the rest of the song fell out of me. I hadn’t thought about Joe in a little while, and the song initially wasn’t going to be about him, but the words all fell out of me. I wrote and recorded a whole 2 minutes extra, recording each part as I wrote it. Tears spewing out of my eyes pretty much the whole time, and decided not to do my usual thing of perfecting each line, I just recorded every line as it came. That song is Ren’s latest single Suic*de. During the campaign for the single he raised money for the RNLI, and also donated 50% of the profit on all copies of the ‘Freckled Angels’ album directly to Joe’s family. We managed to raise an incredible £21,000 for the RNLI, an incredible team of volunteers, who risk their lives without pay to aid calls of distress from British shores. The night Joe went missing they were out on the choppy stretch of water between Anglesey and the Mainland, until 5am, looking for Joe, without pay, from the goodness of their hearts. They continued the search efforts for the entire following week until hope dwindled. They owed us nothing, and gave us everything. I decided to pay a visit to Joe’s mum and dad. I was asked to play them the new live session I recorded in Calgary. It was probably the most nervous I’ve been playing someone a video that I’d made. The topic isn’t an easy one, especially for parents who have lost an incredible son. I nervously hit play, and the gravity of what I was showing sunk in and I began to cry. In the end we sat in silence, silently sobbing. Joe’s mum turned to me and smiled and we hugged, and I felt much lighter. It made me really realise I guess what I’ve always known. Music is far more than music. It’s a channel of communication for the things that are impossible to say. It’s a bridge between the living and the dead. It’s a way to stay immortal. It’s a way to resurrect the dead. It’s a universal language. It cuts down barriers of the parts of you which are encapsulated in steel cast iron. It allows frozen rivers to thaw and become un-stagnant. I owe myself, my life, everything I am to music. Music is the closest thing to god I know. I am so grateful to be doing what I do and to tap into this mystic force. My life, my energy, myself, I eternally devote to it.
Wow, great summary. Thank's for it. One tiny little addition: Another friend of Joe open a restaurant called Freckled Angels in the town of Menai Bridge. 🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤
Part of the middle section is from Dominoes. I would really recommend that as a reaction. Not specifically about Joe, but carries a very serious message
Thank you for your honest and genuine reaction. The background here is the Calgary, Canada skyline. As for the song, Ren's best friend, Joe Hughes, committed su!c!de on the 27th of December, 2010 by jumping off the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the mainland to the Isle of Anglesey where Ren and Joe lived. Ren alluded to it in one of his songs, stating that he lost his best friend before he was 25. The pain of this loss is evident in a few of his songs. "How to Be Me," "Freckled Angels," "Su!cIde," and this release, “For Joe,” are specifically dedicated to Joe. Ren posted some background on his relationship with Joe and the tragic event. Ren explained that he got a call from his friend Ella around 3 a.m. saying that Joe was on the Menai Bridge, He’d been on the phone with her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. Ren went out on foot attempting to get to Joe while trying to reach him on the phone. Just minutes before Ren got to the bridge, his friend's cell phone went out of service. The Coast Guard started a search to no avail. Ren, friends, and volunteers unsuccessfully searched the shoreline for ten days; Joe’s body was never recovered. Ren’s song "Su!cIde" gutted me, and I was not able to watch or listen to it again until now. I was not even able to watch a single reaction to it. It was a sad, haunting, gut-wrenching tribute. My best friend took his life 38 years ago. However, after listening to "For Joe" several times, I came to the realization that as sad and emotional as this song is, it has had a healing effect on me and has given me a sense of closure. Even the lyrics of the epilogue from "Su!cIde" that "gutted" me impacted me differently this time around. Anthony Ray (@AnthonyRay) said after reacting to this performance (I am paraphrasing) that he felt that after all these years, Ren seems to have found a measure of acceptance regarding the loss of his best friend. Anthony's comment suddenly made me aware of the song's impact on me, and I am actually able to watch or listen to "Su!cIde" again. Although I will probably not watch any reactions to it, as I consider this song to be much too personal, and watching someone else's grief would only compound my pain. Thomas Goldschmidt (@thomasgoldschmidt298) remarked, "For Joe" is a continuation of "Su!cIde," displaying the five stages of grief, adding acceptance to the end of his last song…..This song and the sobbing hug he received from Joe's mom after showing the video bring closure to all involved! I think ending "For Joe" with lines from Ren's song "Freckles Angels," which was an earlier tribute to Joe, left me with a more optimistic outlook. It is as if Ren is trying to tell us that even though some of our loved ones are physically gone from our lives, their memory continues to live in and through us. I think that is why I got a sense of closure and peace.
Beautiful reaction to this most touching tribute. Mackay is another wonderful tribute to another lost friend. Personal favourite is Penitence , Ren with Molly McKinna.
Every single time I hear this I just think it’s beautifully crushing tribute. It’s in my top 3 of Ren songs for the way it makes me think of my friend who passed away 20 years ago.
The line abput 'looking down to see tranquility' is from Joe Hughes' perspective as he looked down before jumping that fateful night. Trying to find peace of mind over stormy seas. Tranquility. One way or another.
I also think about it as Ren looking down from the bridge after arriving there with no Joe around; that he was no longer around. Ren has been mentioning that he also had been thinking similar thoughts about ending it all, but that seeing how Joe's decision affected everyone around him, made him realise he could never do that to the people he loved.
Thanks, great reaction 👍❤ Others already mentioned the song Freckled Angels, it's a great emotional tribute to Joe. I never met Joe and didn't know anything about him before I heard Ren. Joe jumped of the Menai Bridge on my birthday. He will always be part of my special day now. R.I.P. Joe ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ Six month after Joe's end Callum Mackay - who is mentioned in this song as well - drowned in an accident. The song Mackay is dedicated to him. It's piano only but still so emotional. 🫂🫂🫂
I can relate. My best friend Greg died suddenly in July. We've been friends for over 20 years and had met a few months earlier - he was a high school principal at a private international school on the South coast of China. He fell in his apartment and sustained a fatal head injury. His fiance found him but by the time paramedics got to their 19th floor apartment it was too late.
Beautiful dedication song. About feeling emotions thru the music not words if can check out his other dedication song from another friend lost his life in a drowning when saving someone else that was drowning he’s mentioned in this song callum as one of the buddies. Please don’t quote me on the exact way he passed but I think that’s how. The video is called Mackay dedicated to callum mackay. It’s really beautiful. Great reaction ❤❤❤
Interesting analysis, the part where you talked about the Waterfall could be interpreted as how he lost his friend Joe. Joe was lost at sea, Ren donated £22,000 to the local RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute), I think this was Ren trying to get closure on his loss. Freckled angel is referring to Joe who had freckles, there’s also a song Freckled Angel.
If you have not seen dominoes, it’s an amazing song about self image and the intersection between societal marketing and social media making people feel inadequate
Apropos of not much, but you may be intrigued by the last live performance of Lewis Capaldi ‘someone you loved’, Glastonbury Not as tragic as that sounds btw! Then try Snow Patrol, ‘run’, or ‘chasing cars. Also live.
New subscriber here...I very much enjoyed your reaction. Ren lost another friend named Mackay. He has a song by that same title. Piano only, no lyrics ~~ yet it touches your heart just the same. I recommend you check it out.
Posted by Ren about Joe:
I first met Joe when I was 8 years old, my friend Josh said I had to meet this guy, so we both walked over to his, it took about 10 minutes from my house. I was greeted by this kid covered head to toe in freckles, he grinned at us, climbed onto the back of his sofa and screamed “Swanton Bomb!” then front flipped off the top and landed right onto his back on a stone floor. He lay still for a moment, twitched a few times, then got up, grinned at us, brushed himself off, and did it again.
This was Joe. He’d do anything to make people laugh. He ended up becoming one of my best friends. He was there when we stole our first cigarettes out of his mum’s pack, way too young. He was there when I had my first kiss, with a girl twice my size on the back of the 42 bus. He was there when I first got so drunk I threw up in the woods after drinking as much White Lightning Cider as we could. I was there when he did his first backflip on skates, and saw him do a 720 off of the pier cave, that moment became legendary.
Joe was the funny one in our friend group, he’d make us laugh till it hurt. No one had a bad word to say about him. It was impossible not to like him. Usually we put celebrities, athletes and actors on pedestals, turn them into role models and admire them from a far. The person I admired was Joe.
He knew every word to the songs I’d write, we’d get drunk at parties and they’d be singing along as loud as they could. It gave me a lot of confidence back then.
On Christmas Eve 2010 I was sitting in a pub with Joe, he’d been feeling low after a couple of consecutive break ups. He tried to check himself into a mental health outpatient facility a few weeks earlier but they turned him away because he didn’t have an appointment. He turned to me and said that sometimes he wished he could just walk into the sea and keep walking. He said it in a kind of half joking throw away comment type of way, then took a sip of his drink, walked over to the juke box and put Dig by Incubus on.
If I knew that was the last time I’d see Joe I’d have hugged him, told him how much I loved him, how much I looked up to him, how much we all loved him, and I wouldn’t have left that pub. I didn’t know that, so I finished my drink, said Happy Christmas and left.
Two nights after Christmas I got woken up by a phone call at 3am, it was my friend Ella. She told me Joe was on the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the main land to the Isle of Anglesey where we lived. He’d been on the phone to her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. I pulled on my clothes as fast as I could and started running toward the bridge. It was up a hill. I lived about a ten minute walk away, I could run it in five. As I ran I started dialling then redialing his number. The line was busy, which was a good sign, it meant he was still on the phone to someone.
As I got about halfway, the busy tone changed. It told me the line was out of service. I got a sinking feeling and picked up my speed. I arrived to the bridge minutes after I left my house. It was deafeningly quiet. I was the first person to arrive. I got there probably about 2 minutes too late.
Joe’s body was never found.
Initially we refused to believe he was gone. The coastguard came out that night, with boats, and helicopters. Me and my friends spent the next 10 days putting up missing posters everywhere we could, walking up and down beaches with flashlights, getting about 3 hours sleep a night. When you’re walking up and down a beach with a torch when its dark everything looks like a body. We still haven’t found Joe.
As his birthday came around, I wrote a song, Freckled Angels, a song I dedicated to Joe which I sang in front of his friends and family. A charity football match was put on for him, raising money for the RNLI where I won two bottles of wine in a raffle, I drank them both as quickly as I could, naturally, turned to my friend and probably slurred something along the lines of “This is the last time I ever drink” That was 12 years ago, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since.
My first ever album I named Freckled Angels in tribute of one of the best people I ever knew.
Skip forward some years. I’d been sitting on this song I wrote a few years ago. It always felt a little incomplete. It was going to be my next release, but I was dreading it because of this feeling of incompletion. I decided, very last minute, to do something about it.
I sat by my piano, and the rest of the song fell out of me. I hadn’t thought about Joe in a little while, and the song initially wasn’t going to be about him, but the words all fell out of me. I wrote and recorded a whole 2 minutes extra, recording each part as I wrote it. Tears spewing out of my eyes pretty much the whole time, and decided not to do my usual thing of perfecting each line, I just recorded every line as it came.
That song is Ren’s latest single Suic*de. During the campaign for the single he raised money for the RNLI, and also donated 50% of the profit on all copies of the ‘Freckled Angels’ album directly to Joe’s family.
We managed to raise an incredible £21,000 for the RNLI, an incredible team of volunteers, who risk their lives without pay to aid calls of distress from British shores. The night Joe went missing they were out on the choppy stretch of water between Anglesey and the Mainland, until 5am, looking for Joe, without pay, from the goodness of their hearts. They continued the search efforts for the entire following week until hope dwindled. They owed us nothing, and gave us everything.
I decided to pay a visit to Joe’s mum and dad. I was asked to play them the new live session I recorded in Calgary. It was probably the most nervous I’ve been playing someone a video that I’d made. The topic isn’t an easy one, especially for parents who have lost an incredible son. I nervously hit play, and the gravity of what I was showing sunk in and I began to cry. In the end we sat in silence, silently sobbing. Joe’s mum turned to me and smiled and we hugged, and I felt much lighter.
It made me really realise I guess what I’ve always known. Music is far more than music. It’s a channel of communication for the things that are impossible to say. It’s a bridge between the living and the dead. It’s a way to stay immortal. It’s a way to resurrect the dead. It’s a universal language. It cuts down barriers of the parts of you which are encapsulated in steel cast iron. It allows frozen rivers to thaw and become un-stagnant. I owe myself, my life, everything I am to music. Music is the closest thing to god I know. I am so grateful to be doing what I do and to tap into this mystic force. My life, my energy, myself, I eternally devote to it.
Wow, great summary. Thank's for it. One tiny little addition: Another friend of Joe open a restaurant called Freckled Angels in the town of Menai Bridge.
🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤🫂❤
Thank you.
Making something beautiful from something so painful. This sums up Ren in a nutshell 💞
Also, you mention him taking back power. His song "power" shows this is the case.
Ren's "Crutch", with Bibi (his girlfriend at the time): a song about the effect of mental and physical health struggles on relationships.
Thanks for the recommendation!
... if we are going down this kind of path with Ren.
Dominoes next.
Or Freckled angels.
These. For sure
Thank you for the recommendation!
Part of the middle section is from Dominoes. I would really recommend that as a reaction. Not specifically about Joe, but carries a very serious message
Thank you for the recommendation, I appreciate it!
Thank you for your honest and genuine reaction. The background here is the Calgary, Canada skyline. As for the song, Ren's best friend, Joe Hughes, committed su!c!de on the 27th of December, 2010 by jumping off the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the mainland to the Isle of Anglesey where Ren and Joe lived. Ren alluded to it in one of his songs, stating that he lost his best friend before he was 25. The pain of this loss is evident in a few of his songs. "How to Be Me," "Freckled Angels," "Su!cIde," and this release, “For Joe,” are specifically dedicated to Joe.
Ren posted some background on his relationship with Joe and the tragic event. Ren explained that he got a call from his friend Ella around 3 a.m. saying that Joe was on the Menai Bridge, He’d been on the phone with her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. Ren went out on foot attempting to get to Joe while trying to reach him on the phone. Just minutes before Ren got to the bridge, his friend's cell phone went out of service. The Coast Guard started a search to no avail. Ren, friends, and volunteers unsuccessfully searched the shoreline for ten days; Joe’s body was never recovered.
Ren’s song "Su!cIde" gutted me, and I was not able to watch or listen to it again until now. I was not even able to watch a single reaction to it. It was a sad, haunting, gut-wrenching tribute. My best friend took his life 38 years ago. However, after listening to "For Joe" several times, I came to the realization that as sad and emotional as this song is, it has had a healing effect on me and has given me a sense of closure. Even the lyrics of the epilogue from "Su!cIde" that "gutted" me impacted me differently this time around.
Anthony Ray (@AnthonyRay) said after reacting to this performance (I am paraphrasing) that he felt that after all these years, Ren seems to have found a measure of acceptance regarding the loss of his best friend. Anthony's comment suddenly made me aware of the song's impact on me, and I am actually able to watch or listen to "Su!cIde" again. Although I will probably not watch any reactions to it, as I consider this song to be much too personal, and watching someone else's grief would only compound my pain.
Thomas Goldschmidt (@thomasgoldschmidt298) remarked, "For Joe" is a continuation of "Su!cIde," displaying the five stages of grief, adding acceptance to the end of his last song…..This song and the sobbing hug he received from Joe's mom after showing the video bring closure to all involved!
I think ending "For Joe" with lines from Ren's song "Freckles Angels," which was an earlier tribute to Joe, left me with a more optimistic outlook. It is as if Ren is trying to tell us that even though some of our loved ones are physically gone from our lives, their memory continues to live in and through us. I think that is why I got a sense of closure and peace.
Beautiful reaction to this most touching tribute. Mackay is another wonderful tribute to another lost friend. Personal favourite is Penitence , Ren with Molly McKinna.
A beautiful song indeed. Thank you for watching and thanks for the recommendations.
Every single time I hear this I just think it’s beautifully crushing tribute. It’s in my top 3 of Ren songs for the way it makes me think of my friend who passed away 20 years ago.
The line abput 'looking down to see tranquility' is from Joe Hughes' perspective as he looked down before jumping that fateful night. Trying to find peace of mind over stormy seas. Tranquility. One way or another.
Is it? Or is it Ren looking down, just seeing water?
I also think about it as Ren looking down from the bridge after arriving there with no Joe around; that he was no longer around.
Ren has been mentioning that he also had been thinking similar thoughts about ending it all, but that seeing how Joe's decision affected everyone around him, made him realise he could never do that to the people he loved.
Thanks, great reaction 👍❤
Others already mentioned the song Freckled Angels, it's a great emotional tribute to Joe. I never met Joe and didn't know anything about him before I heard Ren. Joe jumped of the Menai Bridge on my birthday. He will always be part of my special day now. R.I.P. Joe ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Six month after Joe's end Callum Mackay - who is mentioned in this song as well - drowned in an accident. The song Mackay is dedicated to him. It's piano only but still so emotional. 🫂🫂🫂
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much for this reaction. Love your take and knowledge these.
I can't wait for you to do Troubles 😊
Thanks for watching and for the recommendation!
I personally think: This is the greatest work of art ever created. So far beyond "just music"
Thank you for reacting to this one and your feedback, R.I.P JOE HUGHES ❤❤❤
I can relate. My best friend Greg died suddenly in July. We've been friends for over 20 years and had met a few months earlier - he was a high school principal at a private international school on the South coast of China. He fell in his apartment and sustained a fatal head injury. His fiance found him but by the time paramedics got to their 19th floor apartment it was too late.
So sorry for your loss...
🫶Love Ren and his sweet heart❤️🩹Beautiful and professional reaction Dr🌹🌹
Thanks for watching!
🙏🙏🙏
I see the transistion after the "waterfall" as you call it as Ren wailing with grief. That part really hits me hard.
Mm yes I can see that...I felt that in the intro for sure.
Everybody with a heart has got to love Ren.
Thank you mate!
Beautiful dedication song. About feeling emotions thru the music not words if can check out his other dedication song from another friend lost his life in a drowning when saving someone else that was drowning he’s mentioned in this song callum as one of the buddies. Please don’t quote me on the exact way he passed but I think that’s how. The video is called Mackay dedicated to callum mackay. It’s really beautiful. Great reaction ❤❤❤
Oh my...thank you for letting me know.
TY❤
❤Thank you ❤
Loved your reaction - thank you ! Liked & subscribed
Thanks for watching and for joining me!
❤️
Nice
Interesting analysis, the part where you talked about the Waterfall could be interpreted as how he lost his friend Joe. Joe was lost at sea, Ren donated £22,000 to the local RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute), I think this was Ren trying to get closure on his loss. Freckled angel is referring to Joe who had freckles, there’s also a song Freckled Angel.
Thank you for sharing that and I appreciate you watching.
❤
If you have not seen dominoes, it’s an amazing song about self image and the intersection between societal marketing and social media making people feel inadequate
Apropos of not much, but you may be intrigued by the last live performance of Lewis Capaldi ‘someone you loved’, Glastonbury
Not as tragic as that sounds btw!
Then try Snow Patrol, ‘run’, or ‘chasing cars. Also live.
Thank you for the recommendations!
New subscriber here...I very much enjoyed your reaction. Ren lost another friend named Mackay. He has a song by that same title. Piano only, no lyrics ~~ yet it touches your heart just the same. I recommend you check it out.
Thank you, and I appreciate the recommendation. The piano is amazing!
Yes, Mackay is such a beautiful piece of art.
🙏❤️