“If you just fell, it wouldn’t do anything to you. Now there’s a heat storm,” Root tells host Cornald Maas about all the (media) attention he’s received since his announcement last summer. Root received support statements and letters from prominent colleagues. “I accepted that with gratitude,” said the 64-year-old artist.

Looking at his life, Root says he can be satisfied. “My ambitions have never been fame and success, but just to make beautiful things. And that is what I am most proud of, that I have been able to keep my pants off for 45 years and that I have produced and made an incredible amount of love,” he says. “And I think everything is beautiful. Sure, some things are better than others, but it’s your harvest. I always enjoy that too.”

Good-bye

The inevitable farewell is getting closer and closer, but Root doesn’t know exactly when it will be. If he feels his end is near, he will choose a shelter – especially for his four children – to spend his last days. “Otherwise it would be so hard on the kids, my dad dies in an upstairs room.”

Finally, Maas asks the artist how he sees him when he is no longer there and how he would prefer to be remembered. Root doesn’t think much of that. “If I forget in ten years, then I will be forgotten in ten years,” he says. In the past, the singer, in his own words, felt more that his “legacy or masterpieces” he created should be remembered. But now this is no longer the case. “My masterpieces are my four children, especially thanks to my wife Dan.”