I believe joes suicide stopped Ren going down the same path,as Ren knew how he and joes family felt afterwards. Heartfelt reaction ❤from D in the UK 🇬🇧
My understanding is the first part of the song is about when he was considering taking his own life, the second part is about Joe, and how badly it crushed him when Joe passed away - which opened his mind to how badly people doing that hurts the people around them, and convinced him that that wasn't a path he could ever follow. No matter how much he's suffering, he doesn't want inflict that on anyone.
thank you for not being afraid to say the word suicide, i truly believe this is a subject that should not be hidden, it should be discussed and embraced, if someone has these thoughts maybe speaking about it will help that person, a good friend helped me once with understanding how i was feeling
Ren makes us feel It's good to watch another person listen and discover some of the same feelings I did listening to this. That's one of the best things about these reactions - we can share some feelings even separate in distance and time.
Thank you for reacting to this amazing piece of work by Ren. Both Joe and Ren were in high school with my daughter so the impact for her is even more intense. A lot of what you mentioned I remember my Rachel going through those feelings so the sensitivity and empathy you showed towards what was a tragic event was not just appropriate but well received. Once again thank you. I recommend you react to For Joe where you will see and hear the end of this song plus so much more, it is a live one take and he’s soloing on keys.
I usually don’t comment much on the videos I watch but I always think your reactions are fun and full of light. (Which I love!) Your reaction today was a very intelligent one being this is such a serious topic. Thank you for showing us this side of you! ❤✨
As always, you wear your heart on your sleeve....that's what I like so much about your reactions....thanks for sharing your thoughts on this painful song and remember 'Joe', Ren's lost friend (R.I.P.)
I know that was a hard reaction for you. Thank you for moving forward with your reaction as you brought up many things in the first part that I hadn't heard anyone say. Suicide should not be a forbidden word. Having it hidden will not stop it from happening, only make it harder to speak about and get help.
A wholesome reaction 😊 I have listened to this song several times now but this was the first time I heard that they (Ren and his friends) didn't say goodbye to Joe 😢just the empty box 💔 This made me sad 😭
I listened to a interview from Ren, His contemplation on the subject was him trying to deal and understand all the pain he was dealing with from what I understand from Ren is it was like being tortured over and over again sometimes on a daily basis. But he told his mother that if he did he was sorry but he was so tired of hurting all the time! He was amazed he lasted a year ! And all he could do is live and learn how to carry on with the pain.. Maybe not as sever but he is still dealing with the pain now !! His treatments are not cures for autoimmunity. But supplements and experimental treatments are helping it some what.. He goes in for IVs 5 days a week with 4 lVs and a blood withdraw.. Very aggressive !! This is why the song Fred Again had me in tears. Imagine ? You are somewhere new, on your own, going in for very aggressive medical treatments when you thought you were never going to see 30 years old !! I see the vulnerability in his voice and words he picked from a concert he attended of Fred Again who he has been a fan of for a while and the lyrics you hear break you down to a puddle. Fred I'd EDM music DJ so everything is electronic.. Ren took 5 of his songs and put together in his emotional vulnerable and soulful lyrics. And you can really feel his doubts and strength .. But emotional to anyone who has empathy !! And he did this song quick for conception to this take..
I agree with the comments that you should check out the Knox Hill interview. I'd suggest checking out all of the interviews over the last couple of years, but I would especially recommend watching the one with The Charismatic Voice. Specifically, the part where he talks about his experience while writing and recording that last part of this song. It is heart wrenching.
I've been watching your Ren reactions since you started. I knew this one would come up sooner or later. I also knew that you would cover this video with the honesty and earnestness it deserves. The more we talk about this subject the less power it has over people and maybe some of them will step out of the shadows. Loved this video.
Great reaction. Intelligent and heart-felt. I seem to remember that you like Anime etc? That's why your comments on the first section were an eye opener to me. Thank you. Some reactors leave commentary notes in the description, (one reactor that I know of her comments there are really worth reading), which might give you even more time to process and react in another way? Nonetheless, I repeat, that was a great reaction.
I believe Ren was so "sick & tired" about feeling "sick & tired" all the time. His body was dying and he couldn't take the pain anymore. As he says in these lyrics, it never really felt like the right time because of Joe's death and then Calum's shortly after. He couldn't put his family & friends what he felt losing Joe. I can empathize with that, after my best friend who saved ME from ending myself was taken from us in a car accident. I feel I have to live for him!!
Ren is so very special and touches many in a way they didn't think possible. I appreciate your perfect reaction to this very tough one. Mackay is another beautiful tribute by Ren.
Well said. Thanks for the courage to have this discussion here. It touches more people that don’t want to have the open conversation with anyone in particular but someone who understands puts out a video they know there’s more people that feel the same.
Ren being so sick and in so much pain did consider suicide but after Joe he decided against it. My Mom committed suicide and I tried due to such depression and severe chronic pain which was worse with the stress from my Mom. My older kids really suffered and I still feel awful about it. Thank you for your great empathetic reaction❤
Thank you 🙏❤ Jessie ❤ for your 🐷 Ren - 🌉 Su!cIde reaction! #ren #suicde #sickboialbum R.I.P. Joe Hughes The live performance is called 🌉 For Joe "A man isn't dead as long as his name is still spoken" - Sir Terry 'Pterry' Pratchett Notice that Ren, who loves busking (playing music on the streets for passers-by) is paying some money to the busker. There is a documentary style interview with Ren called Behind the song suicide with Ren ua-cam.com/video/HCm5wghhSd4/v-deo.html but you may want to watch or react to "For Joe" and/or "Freckled Angels" first.
Sitting here with a tear in my eye, this track always does it to me, firstly because of the beauty of this song despite the subject matter, but also because of your wonderful reaction. Thank you ❤
this is from Ren community page Today I want to write something beautiful and eloquent but I’ve been staring at my computer screen for the past 10 minutes blankly. So I’ll just write. Today, the 1st of June is my friend Joe’s birthday. I first met Joe when I was 8 years old, my friend Josh said I had to meet this guy, so we both walked over to his, it took about 10 minutes from my house. I was greeted by this kid covered head to toe in freckles, he grinned at us, climbed onto the back of his sofa and screamed “Swanton Bomb!” then front flipped off the top and landed right onto his back on a stone floor. He lay still for a moment, twitched a few times, then got up, grinned at us, brushed himself off, and did it again. This was Joe. He’d do anything to make people laugh. He ended up becoming one of my best friends. He was there when we stole our first cigarettes out of his mums pack, way too young. He was there when I had my first kiss, with a girl twice my size on the back of the 42 bus. He was there when I first got so drunk I threw up in the woods after drinking as much white lightning Cider as we could. I was there when he did his first backflip on skates, and saw him do a 720 off of the pier cave, that moment became legendary. Joe was the funny one in our friend group, he’d make us laugh till it hurt. No one had a bad word to say about him. It was impossible not to like him. Usually we put celebrities, athletes and actors on pedestals, turn them into role models and admire them from a far. The person I admired was Joe. Him and Sagar knew every word to the songs id write, we’d get drunk at parties and they’d be singing along as loud as they could. It gave me a lot of confidence back then. On Christmas Eve 2010 I was sitting in a pub with Joe, he’d been feeling low after a couple of consecutive break ups. He tried to check himself into a mental health outpatient facility a few weeks earlier but they turned him away because he didn’t have an appointment. He turned to me and said that sometimes he wished he could just walk into the sea and keep walking. He said it in a kind of half joking throw away comment type of way, then took a sip of his drink, walked over to the juke box and put Dig by Incubus on. If I knew that was the last time I’d see Joe id have hugged him, told him how much I loved him, how much I looked up to him, how much we all loved him, and I wouldn’t have left that pub. I didn’t know that, so I finished my drink, said happy Christmas and left. Two nights after Christmas I got woken up by a phone call at 3am, it was my friend Ella. She told me Joe was on the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the main land to the isle of Anglesey where we lived. He’d been on the phone to her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. I pulled on my clothes as fast as I could and started running toward the bridge. It was up a hill. I lived about a ten minute walk away, I could run it in five. As I ran I started dialling then redialing his number. The line was busy, which was a good sign, it meant he was still on the phone to someone. As I got about halfway, the busy tone changed. It told me the line was out of service. I got a sinking feeling and picked up my speed. I arrived to the bridge minutes after I left my house. It was deafeningly quiet. I was the first person to arrive. I got there probably about 2 minutes too late. Joe’s body was never found. Initially we refused to believe he was gone. The coastguard came out that night, with boats, and helicopters. Me and my friends spent the next 10 days putting up missing posters everywhere we could, walking up and down beaches with flashlights, getting about 3 hours sleep a night. When you’re walking up and down a beach with a torch when its dark everything looks like a body. We still haven’t found Joe. As his birthday came around, I wrote a song, freckled angels, a song I dedicated to Joe which I sang in front of his friends and family. A charity football match was put on for him, raising money for the RNLI where I won two bottles of wine in a raffle, I drank them both as quickly as I could, naturally, turned to my friend and probably slurred something along the lines of “This is the last time I ever drink” That was 12 years ago, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since. My first ever album I named Freckled Angels in tribute of one of the best people I ever knew. Skip forward some years. I’d been sitting on this song I wrote a few years ago. It always felt a little incomplete. It was going to be my next release, but I was dreading it because of this feeling of incompletion. I decided, very last minute, to do something about it. I sat by my piano, and the rest of the song fell out of me. I hadn’t thought about Joe in a little while, and the song initially wasn’t going to be about him, but the words all fell out of me. I wrote and recorded a whole 2 minutes extra, recording each part as I wrote it. Tears spewing out of my eyes pretty much the whole time, and decided not to do my usual thing of perfecting each line, I just recorded every line as it came. This will be my next release
Maybe after this check out For Joe and maybe Depression (a lyric video) but probably find something a bit more uplifting first. Loved your honest reaction to this hard topic.
Ya autta do Rens Freckled Angel's... written for Joe! At least watch on your own! There are a few versions... just an audio, a Live, and one showing pictures of them as kids! All are tough to get thru... so take your pick!! And Yes... I recommend watching all of his interviews... he's an amazing person! One everyone should thrive to emulate imho!
Ren isn't an easy artist to react to. He's a truly authentic sledge hammer. Like he says in 'Hi Ren' "And when I'm gone, maybe I'll be remembered For doing something special with myself"
If you believe in the power of words, and believe in using them to shape our thinking, then you may separate the verb "commit" (as in "commit" a crime) from the noun sui-de. Use the verb "die" (or a common placeholder like pass away, left us, went out to greenest pastures etc.) by suic-de instead. It makes it easier to talk about it, and talking about it is needed.
Good idea to not have the panda hat for this one it would have felt out of place here. Good reaction! Only halfway through now. I may edit this again later. Edit: I almost didn’t want to click play on this because you are always so bubbly and I knew the end would hit you hard and wasn’t sure I wanted to see it, but you did great!
I don't think the first part of the song is about Joe. "Never really felt like the right time," to me is something you say about yourself, not someone you lost. The second half-- whoa, ouch! Definitely Joe.
This video was released early on my Patreon! Thank you to all of my Patreon Supporters!
Yes it was, I just looked. Must have overlooked it there last week 🙂
I believe joes suicide stopped Ren going down the same path,as Ren knew how he and joes family felt afterwards. Heartfelt reaction ❤from D in the UK 🇬🇧
I agree
My understanding is the first part of the song is about when he was considering taking his own life, the second part is about Joe, and how badly it crushed him when Joe passed away - which opened his mind to how badly people doing that hurts the people around them, and convinced him that that wasn't a path he could ever follow. No matter how much he's suffering, he doesn't want inflict that on anyone.
Ren stated that Joe's death kept him from it. He said he could not put his Mom and Sister through that pain.
thank you for not being afraid to say the word suicide, i truly believe this is a subject that should not be hidden, it should be discussed and embraced, if someone has these thoughts maybe speaking about it will help that person, a good friend helped me once with understanding how i was feeling
Your comment about the video production and disassociation was really spot on. Great reaction ❤
Insightful, compassionate and intelligent. Wonderful reaction.
Ren makes us feel It's good to watch another person listen and discover some of the same feelings I did listening to this. That's one of the best things about these reactions - we can share some feelings even separate in distance and time.
A truly authentic and relatable reaction. Thank you 🫡!🇬🇧!
Thank you for reacting to this amazing piece of work by Ren. Both Joe and Ren were in high school with my daughter so the impact for her is even more intense. A lot of what you mentioned I remember my Rachel going through those feelings so the sensitivity and empathy you showed towards what was a tragic event was not just appropriate but well received. Once again thank you. I recommend you react to For Joe where you will see and hear the end of this song plus so much more, it is a live one take and he’s soloing on keys.
Thank for your heartfelt reaction. It is a difficult topic to talk about but breaking the taboo is sooooo important. Thanks again
I usually don’t comment much on the videos I watch but I always think your reactions are fun and full of light. (Which I love!) Your reaction today was a very intelligent one being this is such a serious topic. Thank you for showing us this side of you! ❤✨
As always, you wear your heart on your sleeve....that's what I like so much about your reactions....thanks for sharing your thoughts on this painful song and remember 'Joe', Ren's lost friend (R.I.P.)
I know that was a hard reaction for you. Thank you for moving forward with your reaction as you brought up many things in the first part that I hadn't heard anyone say. Suicide should not be a forbidden word. Having it hidden will not stop it from happening, only make it harder to speak about and get help.
A wholesome reaction 😊
I have listened to this song several times now but this was the first time I heard that they (Ren and his friends) didn't say goodbye to Joe 😢just the empty box 💔
This made me sad 😭
I listened to a interview from Ren, His contemplation on the subject was him trying to deal and understand all the pain he was dealing with from what I understand from Ren is it was like being tortured over and over again sometimes on a daily basis. But he told his mother that if he did he was sorry but he was so tired of hurting all the time! He was amazed he lasted a year ! And all he could do is live and learn how to carry on with the pain.. Maybe not as sever but he is still dealing with the pain now !! His treatments are not cures for autoimmunity. But supplements and experimental treatments are helping it some what.. He goes in for IVs 5 days a week with 4 lVs and a blood withdraw.. Very aggressive !! This is why the song Fred Again had me in tears. Imagine ? You are somewhere new, on your own, going in for very aggressive medical treatments when you thought you were never going to see 30 years old !! I see the vulnerability in his voice and words he picked from a concert he attended of Fred Again who he has been a fan of for a while and the lyrics you hear break you down to a puddle. Fred I'd EDM music DJ so everything is electronic.. Ren took 5 of his songs and put together in his emotional vulnerable and soulful lyrics. And you can really feel his doubts and strength .. But emotional to anyone who has empathy !! And he did this song quick for conception to this take..
Everything you said is true and well said. Fred Again is my favorite song.
I agree with the comments that you should check out the Knox Hill interview. I'd suggest checking out all of the interviews over the last couple of years, but I would especially recommend watching the one with The Charismatic Voice. Specifically, the part where he talks about his experience while writing and recording that last part of this song. It is heart wrenching.
i suspect that Ren wasn't what you expected to discover when you started doing reactions. He's pretty unique
For Joe is the follow up 👍👍✌️
I've been watching your Ren reactions since you started. I knew this one would come up sooner or later. I also knew that you would cover this video with the honesty and earnestness it deserves. The more we talk about this subject the less power it has over people and maybe some of them will step out of the shadows. Loved this video.
Great reaction. Intelligent and heart-felt. I seem to remember that you like Anime etc? That's why your comments on the first section were an eye opener to me. Thank you. Some reactors leave commentary notes in the description, (one reactor that I know of her comments there are really worth reading), which might give you even more time to process and react in another way? Nonetheless, I repeat, that was a great reaction.
I believe Ren was so "sick & tired" about feeling "sick & tired" all the time. His body was dying and he couldn't take the pain anymore. As he says in these lyrics, it never really felt like the right time because of Joe's death and then Calum's shortly after. He couldn't put his family & friends what he felt losing Joe. I can empathize with that, after my best friend who saved ME from ending myself was taken from us in a car accident. I feel I have to live for him!!
Appreciate your honest ,heartfelt reaction. I believe you are wise beyond your years and understand human nature.
Ren is so very special and touches many in a way they didn't think possible. I appreciate your perfect reaction to this very tough one. Mackay is another beautiful tribute by Ren.
Well said.
Thanks for the courage to have this discussion here. It touches more people that don’t want to have the open conversation with anyone in particular but someone who understands puts out a video they know there’s more people that feel the same.
Very thoughtful and sensitively handled reaction. ❤
Ren being so sick and in so much pain did consider suicide but after Joe he decided against it. My Mom committed suicide and I tried due to such depression and severe chronic pain which was worse with the stress from my Mom. My older kids really suffered and I still feel awful about it. Thank you for your great empathetic reaction❤
a lovely soul x
Heartfelt reaction Jessie, thanks for that ❤️🏴🇬🇧
You have a good heart. Thank you.
Thank you 🙏❤ Jessie ❤ for your 🐷 Ren - 🌉 Su!cIde reaction! #ren #suicde #sickboialbum R.I.P. Joe Hughes
The live performance is called 🌉 For Joe
"A man isn't dead as long as his name is still spoken" - Sir Terry 'Pterry' Pratchett
Notice that Ren, who loves busking (playing music on the streets for passers-by) is paying some money to the busker.
There is a documentary style interview with Ren called Behind the song suicide with Ren ua-cam.com/video/HCm5wghhSd4/v-deo.html but you may want to watch or react to "For Joe" and/or "Freckled Angels" first.
Sitting here with a tear in my eye, this track always does it to me, firstly because of the beauty of this song despite the subject matter, but also because of your wonderful reaction. Thank you ❤
this is from Ren community page
Today I want to write something beautiful and eloquent but I’ve been staring at my computer screen for the past 10 minutes blankly. So I’ll just write.
Today, the 1st of June is my friend Joe’s birthday.
I first met Joe when I was 8 years old, my friend Josh said I had to meet this guy, so we both walked over to his, it took about 10 minutes from my house. I was greeted by this kid covered head to toe in freckles, he grinned at us, climbed onto the back of his sofa and screamed “Swanton Bomb!” then front flipped off the top and landed right onto his back on a stone floor. He lay still for a moment, twitched a few times, then got up, grinned at us, brushed himself off, and did it again.
This was Joe. He’d do anything to make people laugh. He ended up becoming one of my best friends. He was there when we stole our first cigarettes out of his mums pack, way too young. He was there when I had my first kiss, with a girl twice my size on the back of the 42 bus. He was there when I first got so drunk I threw up in the woods after drinking as much white lightning Cider as we could. I was there when he did his first backflip on skates, and saw him do a 720 off of the pier cave, that moment became legendary.
Joe was the funny one in our friend group, he’d make us laugh till it hurt. No one had a bad word to say about him. It was impossible not to like him. Usually we put celebrities, athletes and actors on pedestals, turn them into role models and admire them from a far. The person I admired was Joe.
Him and Sagar knew every word to the songs id write, we’d get drunk at parties and they’d be singing along as loud as they could. It gave me a lot of confidence back then.
On Christmas Eve 2010 I was sitting in a pub with Joe, he’d been feeling low after a couple of consecutive break ups. He tried to check himself into a mental health outpatient facility a few weeks earlier but they turned him away because he didn’t have an appointment. He turned to me and said that sometimes he wished he could just walk into the sea and keep walking. He said it in a kind of half joking throw away comment type of way, then took a sip of his drink, walked over to the juke box and put Dig by Incubus on. If I knew that was the last time I’d see Joe id have hugged him, told him how much I loved him, how much I looked up to him, how much we all loved him, and I wouldn’t have left that pub. I didn’t know that, so I finished my drink, said happy Christmas and left.
Two nights after Christmas I got woken up by a phone call at 3am, it was my friend Ella. She told me Joe was on the Menai Bridge, a large suspension bridge connecting the main land to the isle of Anglesey where we lived. He’d been on the phone to her in tears saying goodbye. He told her to tell everyone he loved them. I pulled on my clothes as fast as I could and started running toward the bridge. It was up a hill. I lived about a ten minute walk away, I could run it in five. As I ran I started dialling then redialing his number. The line was busy, which was a good sign, it meant he was still on the phone to someone. As I got about halfway, the busy tone changed. It told me the line was out of service. I got a sinking feeling and picked up my speed. I arrived to the bridge minutes after I left my house. It was deafeningly quiet. I was the first person to arrive. I got there probably about 2 minutes too late.
Joe’s body was never found.
Initially we refused to believe he was gone. The coastguard came out that night, with boats, and helicopters. Me and my friends spent the next 10 days putting up missing posters everywhere we could, walking up and down beaches with flashlights, getting about 3 hours sleep a night. When you’re walking up and down a beach with a torch when its dark everything looks like a body. We still haven’t found Joe.
As his birthday came around, I wrote a song, freckled angels, a song I dedicated to Joe which I sang in front of his friends and family. A charity football match was put on for him, raising money for the RNLI where I won two bottles of wine in a raffle, I drank them both as quickly as I could, naturally, turned to my friend and probably slurred something along the lines of “This is the last time I ever drink” That was 12 years ago, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since.
My first ever album I named Freckled Angels in tribute of one of the best people I ever knew.
Skip forward some years. I’d been sitting on this song I wrote a few years ago. It always felt a little incomplete. It was going to be my next release, but I was dreading it because of this feeling of incompletion. I decided, very last minute, to do something about it. I sat by my piano, and the rest of the song fell out of me. I hadn’t thought about Joe in a little while, and the song initially wasn’t going to be about him, but the words all fell out of me. I wrote and recorded a whole 2 minutes extra, recording each part as I wrote it. Tears spewing out of my eyes pretty much the whole time, and decided not to do my usual thing of perfecting each line, I just recorded every line as it came. This will be my next release
What a beautiful, insightful reaction to this very difficult song. {{hugs}}
Maybe after this check out For Joe and maybe Depression (a lyric video) but probably find something a bit more uplifting first.
Loved your honest reaction to this hard topic.
Ya autta do Rens Freckled Angel's... written for Joe! At least watch on your own!
There are a few versions... just an audio, a Live, and one showing pictures of them as kids!
All are tough to get thru... so take your pick!!
And Yes... I recommend watching all of his interviews... he's an amazing person! One everyone should thrive to emulate imho!
Your reaction was perfect and your insights so heartfelt. Thank you. Take care.
RIP JOE
GD way over 7k subs. Way to go!.
The video relates to the music? Wow! Who would have thought it! lol. :)
wow like omg so funny.
Thanks!
Ren isn't an easy artist to react to. He's a truly authentic sledge hammer.
Like he says in 'Hi Ren'
"And when I'm gone, maybe I'll be remembered
For doing something special with myself"
You're a kind soul. I see it in your eyes.
Thank you for sharing your feelings and insights. ❤
If you believe in the power of words, and believe in using them to shape our thinking, then you may separate the verb "commit" (as in "commit" a crime) from the noun sui-de. Use the verb "die" (or a common placeholder like pass away, left us, went out to greenest pastures etc.) by suic-de instead. It makes it easier to talk about it, and talking about it is needed.
LESSS GOOO
💙
More ren please
Good idea to not have the panda hat for this one it would have felt out of place here. Good reaction! Only halfway through now. I may edit this again later.
Edit: I almost didn’t want to click play on this because you are always so bubbly and I knew the end would hit you hard and wasn’t sure I wanted to see it, but you did great!
❤❤❤❤
Thanks again for a great reaction.
You must do For Joe, please
I appreciated your reaction and emotion analysis. Thank you.
❤💔❤
you should do Freckled angels and for Joe
;
🤛😎👍
I love you you are so cute
🫂
I don't think the first part of the song is about Joe. "Never really felt like the right time," to me is something you say about yourself, not someone you lost. The second half-- whoa, ouch! Definitely Joe.
yeah, I think the first half was about himself, empathizing with how Joe must have felt thinking about the same things
😢
Rens shit
do you need a hug?
Good call on the dissociation - didn't consider it with this AI generated video until you mentioned it. Cheers from outback OZ 🦘🦘