A Song for You: A Poignant Look into Whitney Houston’s Life Through Her Best Friend's Eyes

As an avid reader and a journalist, I absolutely love all forms of storytelling. I’m into fiction mostly but also enjoy some good non-fiction, especially autobiographies and memoirs. So imagine my surprise when I heard that a first hand story about Whitney Houston was being written about by her best friend and true love.

A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston by Robyn Crawford is 313+ pages of purity, love, a few trials and some wildly joyous adventures between Robyn and Whitney. This isn’t strictly a love story, but an interesting mix of friendship, intimacy and a coming of age journey of Whitney Elizabeth Houston from a pre-teen into stardom and beyond and how her relationship with Robyn shaped her life and career. 

Crawford has been silent on Houston’s death since 2012, and has been harrassed, harangued and threatened by Houston’s family ever since they met in 1980-part of her decision to wait so long to write the book was a rebellion to refuse to tabloidese her dear friend, but Robyn is still  very soft spoken 55 years later in interviews, stuck in the mindset of protecting and shielding Whitney from any and all harm. 

The story begins with the two meeting at a community center in East Orange, New Jersey. Whitney was 3 years younger and still in high school at 17 under the watchful eye of her mother Cissy and star studded family; she was groomed to operate in her gift already. Robyn was in college and home on break; she was a basketball star at 19.

The attraction to each other was explosive and cosmic. They immediately became friends and pursued a romantic/sexual relationship. The plain, no frills language in the book was powerful yet subtle, telling many stories within a couple sentences, confirming what tabloids and people suspected for years about their intimacy.

Soon after Whitney signed her record deal at 19 with Arista Records, in one of the most painful and tender scenes in the book, she came home to their shared apartment and handed Robyn a Bible, stating that their physical relationship was over, fearing public exposure and religious consequence. She told Robyn that if they (the record execs) found out they were having sex and involved, “they would use it against us.”

Saddened but understanding, Robyn honored Whitney’s wishes and continued on with her in a very private and unvoiced friendship and assistant role that would span decades and ultimately ended 40 years after they first met due to Whitney’s husband Bobby Brown’s tumultuous behavior, along with the rest of the family’s toxic vitriol aimed at Robyn. 

The book is not a tell all or expose, as Robyn is very careful not to sensationalize her dearest friend and past lover’s life or career, but it’s a frank, honest and often painful account of Whitney’s career and relationship with Robyn and the dangerous intangibles that come with it: drug use and abuse, family secrets, Whitney’s  contrasting public homophobic stature, Bobby Brown’s abusive marriage to Whitney, industry woes and more. 

Albeit scandal, tragedy and Whitney’s untimely death in 2012, Crawford’s story is that of a quiet masterpiece. She says, “Yes, in the end it was tragic, but the dream and the rise were beautiful,” Crawford writes. “I owe it to my friend to share her story, my story. Our story. And I hope that in doing so, I can set us both free.”