Robbie Williams and Ayda Field chose the songs for his album whilst in the bath together.
The ‘Party Like A Russian’ hitmaker played the full length of his ‘The Heavy Entertainment Show’ album to get the approval of his wife and whilst she liked most of the tracks, she tried to pass on a love song he wrote for her.
He said: "There’s a song on the album called ‘When You Know’ and it is about Ayda, it’s a loving song that I wrote for her. We were playing what goes on the album in the bath together and I played the first song and she said yes, that goes on, second song, yes that definitely goes on, third song, yeah.
"And we got to the fourth song and it was ‘When You Know’, which is the song about Ayda and at the end of the song, there was just silence and she said, ‘No – I don’t think so’. I was like, that’s your Valentine’s gift – I’m not going to do that again!"
And the 42-year-old singer – who has Theodora, four, and Charlton, two, with Ayda – relied on his wife, who he describes as a "gatekeeper", to help him whittle down from 80 tracks to just 16.
Speaking to Louise Minchin on BBC Breakfast, he added: "I spent a lot of time making this album as I do for all the albums but there’s 80 songs that have gone into the pot. They sort of show themselves; the best rise to the top.
"But then you have to play what goes on the album again with the gatekeepers and the gatekeepers are my management, my A&R guy at the record company and my wife. And she’s the biggest gatekeeper of them all. I don’t know if you’ve seen ‘Spinal Tap’ but she is the Jeanine of my life."
Ayda Field snubbed Robbie Williams’ love song
