How Peculiar

Robbie said: “I’d got a massive crush on somebody and I couldn’t handle it. It became all-consuming and overwhelming for about two months. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and we had the backing track to this song, and what was sung, I’m proud to say, was the first take – no lyrics written beforehand – so it was just a train of thought. Probably because I didn’t have any confidence in myself being able to pull off my infatuation, the whole lyric is about me being amazing. It was far from what I felt at the time, but I was probably saying it to bolster my self-confidence.”

Feel

"Most of the vocal we used on the finished thing is from the original demo; I tried to sing it again and I just couldn’t sing it as well as I did on that day. I pour my heart out. It’s someone who’s not really sure of his place in the world and what’s going on". – Robbie’s website.

“Feel” is a track that embodies the theme of Escapology, Williams appears to want to escape his own skin at times, trying to understand his place in the world and the manner in which he can fully realise the beauty he’s been gifted.
It was the lead single from the record, making it to number 1 in Austria, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and The Netherlands. It was certified Gold in 7 countries.
The video features Robbie riding a horse through a black and white forest, and discovering Daryl Hannah, who he then embarks on a love affair with.

Something Beautiful

It was also released as a single on July 28, 2003.

"We wrote this in Barbados when I was in between good times. I think the demo was a bit lightweight – it wasn’t Al Green enough or Macy Gray enough. We originally offered it to Tom Jones and he was interested in it but I don’t think his people completely got it or liked it, so I was ‘if we can make this more soulful I think it would be great to be on the album'. It’s about sitting in bed at night thinking: I wish I wasn’t here by myself". – Robbie Williams, his website.

The music video shows an American Idol-like reality TV-show in which three contestants battle for the Robbie-look-a-like trophy and become the star in the music video of this song. It is a statement against the manufacturable society we live in, in which we are used to get things our way.
The music video opens with the Andy Warhol quote “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, which very well suits the world of reality TV, social media and other ‘stages’ at which anyone can participate.4

Monsoon

Robbie said: “It was a song that Guy and I wrote in the Bahamas that I’d binned because I was being too self-critical, and all of a sudden it turned out to be amazing. I think it’s really honest. An awful lot of stuff is written about me and there’s a lot of speculation and you have no forum to actually present yourself where people get an honest view of you. ‘Monsoon' is a very honest version of what I think is going on.”

Love Somebody

Robbie said: “I do want to love somebody. I don’t want to go out any more. I’d like to settle down now. We wrote it in the Bahamas and I didn’t like the verse, but then we dug it out and re-wrote the verses and all of a sudden it fell into place. I’d been listening to ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind' and the verses are definitely my homage to that: ‘there’s not enough minutes in an hour, or hours in the day… a song played in a circle that never skips a beat… a stranger in the country I have yet to meet…‘ Enigmatic paradoxes.”

Revolution

Robbie said: “This was added to the album at the eleventh hour. We actually wrote it by mistake, and the day we wrote it I went home thinking, ‘well, at least we’ve got a great tune for the start of the next album'. And then I thought, ‘I’m not waiting years to put that on an album!‘ So we quickly recorded it and asked Rose Stone to come down and sing with me on it. The revolution is, once again, love lost. Lack of hope. But get your torch out, and shine it for yourself.”

Handsome Man

Robbie said: “‘The World’s Most Handsome Man’ was a tagline that we’d come up with, and it was one of those days where you just go, ‘We can’t say that, can we?…‘ And then I thought: no, I can say that because it will rub loads of people up the wrong way who don’t like me, and the people that do like me will hopefully see the funny side of it. It’s a pisstake on me. It was touch and go whether it was going to be on the album at all, because the demo was very lightweight and it was too twee. We toughened it up. It sounds a lot harder now. The mindset in the song – and if you don’t listen you’ll miss it – is that there’s all that bravado and how great I think I am in the verses, and then in the chorus it says, ‘if you drop me, I’ll fall to pieces on you… if you don’t need me, I don’t exist.’ That’s the most important bit of the song.”

Come Undone

Robbie said:
"So unimpressed but so in awe' – that’s the dichotomy of me. I think it’s another one of those songs where I just want to dissect a perception of myself. ‘Because I’m scum and I’m your son' is not to my family. I saw Tupac come out of a courtroom once, and he said ‘you put me down, you say I’m this that or the other, but I’m a product of your environment, and I’m still your son, America.‘ That touched me. And I am England’s son. And I’m not scum, but I’ve felt like it".

Song 3

Robbie said: “I went to the Coachella festival and saw a lot of bands, and I didn’t think there was anything really good there, and I just thought ‘I can do that'. But that’s just the first verse. I think the majority of it is just the excitement of being in Los Angeles and truly, on a daily basis, belly-laughing, and feeling a lot of time out there that I’m indestructible. It sort of says everything and nothing, all at the same time…”

Hot Fudge

Robbie said: “At the school I went to I’d be thinking about what it must be like to be Lisa Stansfield – it was when she was becoming successful in America. I was ‘I wonder what it’s like to be that, to do that, to go there and see these people…‘ It’s a celebration of finding myself.”

Cursed

Robbie said: “A homage to a friend of mine that passed away. ‘St Peter’s going to be unfaithful/tell God he’s got a dirty angel' – it’s very sexy. I’ve tried to do it as rock'n'roll as I could do to fit them, and still be loving. I mourn their loss.”

Nan's Song

Robbie said: “I completely wrote everything, the words and the music. It’s about my nan who passed away about five years ago. She was a lovely person and she loved me to death and I thought it was only fitting that my first ever song should be about someone I love.”