Adam Sandler opens up about losing his friend Chris Farley in tribute to the late star

Here’s an excerpt of the lyrics to “Chris Farley Song” by Adam Sandler:

On a Saturday night my man would always deliver

Whether he was the bumblebee girl

Or living in a van down by the river

He loved the Bears and he could dance

That Chippendales with Swayze

When they replaced his coffee with Folgers

He went full-on crazy

The sexiest gap girl

Without him, there'd be no lunch lady

In lunch lady land

Oh, I'm thinking about

I'm thinking about my boy

Chris Farley

“The first few times we played that song, I would tear up and I couldn’t really sing it well because I’d get so emotional and then I felt it and was able to get it out there," Sandler told "Happy Sad Confused" host Josh Horowitz. “It’s weird, but when that song starts, I go, ‘Oh f--k, alright, don’t cry and don’t do that’ still. I’ve sang it maybe a hundred times already, but it rocks me.”

He misses him deeply because he knows him as much more than a performer.

“I think it’s because we show a video of Chris and I see his face,” he said, referring to a montage that plays behind Sandler as he sings. “And I remember his dad and I’m friends with his brothers and his mom and everybody and they still miss him a lot. So yeah, it gets me.”

It’s hard for Sandler to talk about Farley but it’s wonderful to hear how much he is still loved.

"I love hearing the crowd go nuts for Farley,” he said, adding, “Every show I do, by far the biggest applause of the night is talking about Farley and any time I mention his name, the audience goes nuts. It feels great.”

Sandler said that when he and his friend David Spade, who was also Farley’s comedic partner, went on tour together, he had a hard time hearing the song. “He’s like ‘Man, sometimes I can’t listen, I gotta walk away because I get so upset,’” Sandler said of Spade. “We loved him. We loved him so much … He was as cool as it gets.”

Farley’s life ended in tragedy, but his memory lives on through his work and friends like Sandler and Spade, who keep his memory alive. It’s a testament to the love that these friends had for Farley that his memory still brings up such strong emotions. It’s a testament to his talent that audiences are still overjoyed when they hear his name.