When Love Takes Over

I didn't expect to cry tonight. I was just watching the show, playing with the dogs, when a voice came through — Kelly Rowland, singing "When Love Takes Over" — and I don't know what it did to me, but I went still. I cried. I hugged myself. And the dogs, being the good souls they are, just stayed close, like they knew.

You spend a long time learning to not feel. After the harm, the noise, the being let down, you build walls so thick you forget there's anything worth feeling behind them. And then a song comes along — not a sad one, a hopeful one — and it just reaches inside and reminds you that the part of you that can still be moved by beauty is still alive. That's not weakness. That's proof it's not all gone.

Music does that. It gets in where words can't. It doesn't ask what you've been through or whether you deserve it — it just meets you where you are, and for a few minutes, it lets you be soft.

I hugged myself because no one else was there, and honestly, I think that's the most important kind of love there is: the finding a way to be loved, even when you're the only one in the room. The dogs don't judge. They don't ask questions. They just stay.

So if you've been holding it together for too long, and you forget you're allowed to feel — put a song on that means something. Let it take over. Cry if it comes. Hug yourself. And if you've got a dog, hold them. That's not a small thing. That's how a person remembers they're still a person.

Love takes over. And sometimes, that's exactly what heals you.

— from the night a voice made me cry, and the dogs stayed close. 💜

My music page has always been about two things — music, and real stories.

Watching Ann Sherridon play Ann Ming got me, because that story is my story. A mum who wouldn't let her daughter's murder be forgotten, who kept fighting until someone had to listen. My Ann was murdered too. And I know exactly what it is to carry her name while the world looks the other way.

So tonight I want to shout out Ann Sherridon, for telling that truth with dignity. Some people act it. Some of us live it.

For my Ann. Still loved. Still remembered. Never buried.

— in my own voice, with love. 💜

I've got to give a mention to G'Wed — the Liverpool show. The scouser in me sat up and felt seen. Proper love for it. Love for love.

And it brought back a story that still makes me grin: me — Darren — down under in Sydney, erupting my Mountain Dew. Making it Coca Cola, dizzy, fizzy. A right fizzy mess, but a happy one.

Clover loves you forever more.

— in my own voice, with love. 💜

I've got something to say about the establishment media.

They ran stories that downplayed the harm — the harm the viewers experienced, the harm we actually lived. And through it all, a private citizen was made more public than their pain ever was.

We never got support. Others got free homes and credit. We delivered blood in the NHS — and we got no credit for it. Nothing.

The harm was real. The coverage wasn't.

— in my own voice. 💜

Darren had a unicorn. She hurt it. And it was never stitched back together again.

The court looked, and looked away. It was easier to believe the ones in authority — the doctor in a high place who allowed it — than to see what had been done.

From the very place that was meant to keep it safe, the hurt was let happen. And the channels carried the story further than the truth — further than any help ever reached.

The unicorn got reach. It never got rest. And it was never stitched back together again.

— in my own voice. 💜

Storyville was always the best — upstairs and down. And the smokers corner: that's where we connected.

We met in Revs — after a weekend, or at Breakfast Club on a Monday morning. And we danced — with every musician and DJ who loved. We danced with them all.

And we always kept Pearl in the ocean — since, and before. 🌊

We made gardens safe and beautiful, wherever we aged, for the butterflies to flourish. 🦋

— Darren. Always. Forever. ∞