Today’s song is ‘You Are the Reason’. This is a song by English singer Calum Scott. It was released on 17 November 2017 via ‘Capitol Records’ as his second original single from his debut album ‘Only Human’. It was produced by Grammy Award-winning record producer, Fraser T. Smith. The song has been streamed over one billion times and has sold over five million copies worldwide. The music video was filmed entirely in Kiev, Ukraine and has surpassed 400 million views on ‘YouTube’.
On 9 February 2018, Scott released a duet version of the song with Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Leona Lewis. Scott remarked in a statement: "Working with Leona was a dream come true. As a fan, I first remember watching her on TV before going on to grace the globe with her incredibly beautiful voice. Now having the honour of working with her on one of my own songs is completely surreal and the passion and raw emotion she brings to our duet make it even more special to me."
The duet was promoted by Scott and Lewis, with performances on the BBC One’s ‘The One Show’ in the UK and ‘Good Morning America’ in the US. The duet charted on various Billboard charts in the US. They also charted in New Zealand, Canada and in Europe. The Official Video for the duet, which features both Scott and Lewis, has since surpassed 223 million views on YouTube and over 74 million streams on Spotify.
In June 2019, You Are the Reason (with Leona Lewis) peaked at Number 7 on the ‘Billboard Digital Songs Sales’ chart. Other duets that Scott released of ‘You Are the Reason’ were with Dutch singer Ilse De Lange on 21 May 2018. Additionally, Scott released a French version of ‘You Are the Reason’ with French singer Barbara Pravi on 1 June 2018. The song appears to naturally be a duet.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The title of this song evokes one thought only in my mind, and that is the love of my wife, Sheila. For it is Sheila who is the reason that I am alive and happy today with three cancers in my body, (blood, skin and rectal).
I have experienced and lived through several life-threatening conditions in my life before I met Sheila; The longest of which lasted nine months in hospital, followed by three years before I was able to walk again. However, no prior dangerous medical condition of mine has lasted seven years so far.
I first met Sheila during November 2010. We married on my seventieth birthday on 10/11/12, and three months later, I was diagnosed with terminal blood cancer. Since that time, I have spent many months and numerous operations in a hospital or confined to my bed or my house for an average of nine months annually for the first four years (2013-2017). This is largely because my terminal blood cancer invariably causes other cancers in all the major organs of my body and leaves me without any effective immune system with which to fend off any illness. Your cold can easily become my pneumonia (and has done four times), your bug can be my downfall and even shaking hands with someone who hasn’t washed theirs can prove deadly for me, or breathing in the same air of somebody with any infection.
Consequently, I never mix with crowds unless I am masked, I never go to crowded places (we attend the cinema during the weekly morning showings where we usually have our own auditorium. We occupy the corner table in the cafe where it is less crowded. We also spend as much time as possible up in our allotment that we have made to our satisfaction. There are no infectious humans there and birds, plants, vegetables, trees and surrounding nature are safe friends for me to be near.
In short; since Sheila and I met and married, despite any illness, operations or medical procedures I’ve incurred, I can honestly say that the past nine years have been the happiest years of my entire life in the presence of another. Indeed, I’d have to say that I never thought it possible that I could ever love anyone as much as I love Sheila, or believed that any man to be loved so much in return as I am.
I have known many loves in my life, but never one that fulfils me as much as the love that Sheila and I share. It is the only love of my life which has incorporated all the love dimensions to make it complete; the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. I have previously experienced two or three of these love dimensions before in my relationship with a woman, but never have I known all four from the same woman as I have with my wife, Sheila.
Don’t get me wrong, we love each other and are not clones of each other. Despite our closeness, we are two very different people who enjoy our own interests that daily occupy us along with shared interests we have. We both helped each other to love again at a time in our lives when we each felt ourselves to have been ‘loved out’ and had probably resigned ourselves to ending our days without another relationship impinging on our valued freedom.
Whom among us would ever imagine that all it would take to adjust one’s mind on such a life-changing matter would be a meeting between two people on Haworth High Street during a cold December afternoon, their innocent holding of hands and an exchanged smile? Who would think that all it took for two people to take the greatest gamble in their lives was to throw the dice of destiny back up in the air, and to accept where they fell?
Within the brief span of one week after our first meeting, and before we met a second time, a shared vision of our future together had started to materialise in our hearts. When we embraced, kissed and gently touched, we each knew the other to be no less than the genuine article. Just like the antique hunter can tell whether the glass they are holding is the genuine article or not, the first time Sheila and I 'pinged together', our estimation and expectations of each other rang true!
Know this one thing, Sheila; even at the expense of forgetting everything else you have ever learned about us over the past nine years since we first met, that ‘You are the reason’ why I am happier today than I have ever been in my life. I love you, Sheila Forde. Bill x
Love and peace Bill xxx