HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED. I HAD FALLEN IN LOVE WITH MY lady, Nancy, but we weren’t an item yet. We went on holiday to Morocco, to a quiet little hotel I knew, but because we weren’t an item, we didn’t stay together in the same room.

Nancy got a room and I had a room, and my brother Mike and his wife, who were on holiday with us, also had a room. But it rained the whole bloody time, and we had paid all this money to come away to this paradise, and we might as well have stayed in Manchester!

The rain was relentless, but we had a great time, and the lovely thing was that I was getting to know Nancy, as you do in that kind of situation. I kept apologising to her for the rain, like it was my fault. I said, ‘I’m really sorry, darling, about all this rain.’ And she said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ And that attitude was so sweet that it really resonated with me. I thought, ‘That’s great.’

There was a pianist in the foyer of the hotel where we were staying, and every evening we would go down there and have drinks and listen to a guy playing a few tunes. He was an old Irish military man who had hung out in Morocco for one reason or another – we don’t even dare dream about why – but he was a great guy. He was particularly good on the piano, and he played just like my dad, all the old songs, so they were songs that took me back. We really enjoyed that, and he’d do requests and then we’d go and have dinner.

The piano was sitting in the foyer all day long, till the pianist came for cocktail hour in the evening, and because the rain would not stop, I sometimes went and just noodled on the keys. Some of the waiters would be clearing up, but there wouldn’t be many people around, so it was nice. It was just like the cupboard I always like to write in. I was just noodling, and although I didn’t know it at the time, I think I was influenced by him, the restaurant pianist, and perhaps even by my dad too, as I was going in a sort of old-fashioned direction with my chords. And it was Valentine’s Day.

I thought, as I often do when I’ve come up with something good, ‘How the hell am I going to remember this?’ So I raced to my room and got my Handycam – this was before iPhones, but I did have a little camera – and I just set it up on the piano and sang the song, so at least I’d have the soundtrack to remind me.

It was all very romantic. I was thinking all sorts of loving thoughts towards Nancy, and while I was at the piano, I could see that the waiters who were clearing up were listening. You can tell when someone’s got half an ear on you, even when they’re pretending just to do their work. But it was nice and romantic, it was a perfect moment, and I thought to myself, we’re not going to stay in separate rooms tonight.

Nancy, 2007

I’ve always really liked that attitude: Don’t worry; it’s gonna be alright. ‘As days and nights / Would pass me by / I’d tell myself that I was waiting for a sign’. This is my life’s philosophy, and this is what happened before I met Nancy; I would always be thinking, ‘I’m gonna see something that’s gonna say, “Oh, this is the woman for you.”’ I had just been in Paris for my daughter Stella’s fashion show, and I’d bought a pink outfit in a shop window, thinking, ‘This’ll be for my next woman,’ and I ended up giving it to Nancy.

I knew from very early on that my relationship with Nancy was going to last, but we had to keep it under cover, at least for a while. I’m always having to look over my shoulder for paparazzi, so we’d go to things and Nancy would have to keep out of the way.

We just wanted to announce ourselves as an item in our own way at our own pace, but they always catch you out. They always end up outing you. You’ll be on a Mediterranean beach, holding hands on one of those innocently beautiful spring days and thinking, ‘This is so good, nobody around for miles.’ And the next day you’ll look online and see yourselves caught on the beach in the most unflattering pose.

If you had to say one word about Nancy, it’s that she’s real. I have a beautiful picture of when we went to the White House. It’s of Nancy and me talking to Barack and Michelle Obama, and we’re laughing at something the president said, and Nancy is paying such attention. She’s a great person. She’s multifaceted. She ran a trucking company, so there’s that side to her, which is very blue collar–esque. Nancy’s got that superpractical administrative side; she’s very interesting to talk to about things. She’s a sweetie – really, as the song says, ‘My valentine’.

The phrase ‘for life’ in this song is something Nancy picked up on. We know the painter Ed Ruscha, who often uses lettering in his pictures, so she asked him whether he would do a picture for my birthday. It’s one of Ed’s most beautiful pictures, and it just says, ‘For life’.