Guy Garvey says his final conversation with his dad was “perfect”.
The Elbow frontman’s father Don died aged 84 in 2018 after a cancer battle, and the 47-year-old musician has recalled the final time they met before he travelled to Canada with wife Rachael Stirling while she spent three months working there.
He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “So I went to see dad and it was very tearful and moving and I said, ‘This might be the last time I see you.’
“He was adamant that it wouldn’t be. As I left the room, I said, ‘I love you Dad, you are the best dad.’
“He said, ‘I am not going anywhere, I will see you in a beer garden in the summer.’ They were the last words he ever said to me. And I thought that was perfect.”
Manchester-born Guy revealed his dad Don and mum Shirley were always proud of their working class roots, and he was inspired by their “love of words”.
He added: “Their love of words definitely filtered through into my songwriting. If we did not know a word at home, we had to look it up in the dictionary.
“Mum saw the extraordinary in the ordinary. my dad was this balance. All his jokes ended in the humiliation of the posh person.”
Meanwhile, the ‘One Day Like This’ hitmaker explained how his decision to pursue music rather than “a salaried career” hurt their relationship, but that all changed when his sister Gina took their dad to see Elbow at the Manchester Arena in 2003.
Guy said: “When he walked in, his jaw dropped. Gina realised not only had he never been to a concert of ours, he had never been to an arena.
“He was full of questions. ‘Who is that woman with Guy’s guitar?’ [His technician]. Does Guy employ her?’ Dad thought We were still in a transit van going to gigs.
“He was proud of his little lad. But from that day everything changed, we had a great friendship for the last 10-12 years of his life.”