Danny O'Donoghue

Like my dad, I would show him the songs at the end of the day.

And then Mark...

I'd love thinking about, you know, standing outside going, oh, wait, I'm telling this lyric that I'm just taught of.

And to not have them around for those is like, it's really, it's, I was going to say bittersweet, but it's just bitter.

It takes your breath away, you know.

And it's that realisation of a truth that you shouldn't and you won't say, but music demands you do.

It demands you do because you can't get that feeling if you don't go there.

And like I said, that's probably one of the toughest things was to...

think about getting back in the studio again.

But I feel like even now, because we released, we went, we already had commitments as a band.

When Mark passed away, then it was about seven months later, we had a commitment to go back out on the road with Pink to do her stadium tour.

And I thought, well, seven months is a long time.

I know I'm going to have to get back to work at some stage.

and also i wanted to openly grieve with our fans because there's you know like you said we're people in the uk only knows in the uk but we're known around the world and we had two two very private funerals one here and one in ireland um but there's a massive fan base out there that when they see you they're going to want to bring it up and talk to you so we went out on tour for that very purpose we dedicated a song talked about him in the middle of it and

It was very cathartic to now do his songs on stage.

But that one song, If You Could See Me Now, the lyrics in the second verse is, if you could see me now, would you recognize me?

Would you pat me on the back or would you criticize me?

Would you follow every line on my tear-stained face?

Put your hand on my heart that was cold as the day you were taken away.

And that's his verse.