{"id":15984,"date":"2019-06-16T10:21:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T16:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1808043"},"modified":"2019-06-16T10:21:25","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T16:21:25","slug":"a-20-song-fathers-day-mix-about-dads-of-every-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/music-news\/a-20-song-fathers-day-mix-about-dads-of-every-kind\/","title":{"rendered":"A 20-Song Father\u2019s Day Mix About Dads of Every Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Edward Morris<\/a><\/span> 19m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Am I missing something, or have songs about daddy pretty much gone out of fashion? Look at the charts, listen to the radio and you\u2019ll find very few current examples of this once pervasive genre.<\/p>\n

Daddy apparently carried more emotional weight when he was around the house a lot, hoeing corn or washing off coal dust than he does commuting to a distant job that enables him to buy pickup trucks and cellphones for everybody else in the family.<\/p>\n

But how long can we lyrically fixate on beach parties and babes in cut-offs? Let me rephrase that. Can\u2019t we pause occasionally in our understandable fixation on beach parties and babes in cut-offs to give a nod to the old man? After all, he helped make us the raging successes we are.<\/p>\n

Unlike moms, who are generally presented as admirable figures in country songs, dads are distributed almost equally between the \u201cstaying\u201d and the \u201cstraying\u201d kinds. The former are resolute sustainers of hearth, home and homilies, while the latter tend to be susceptible to \u201cneon fever\u201d and attendant pleasures of the flesh.
Be that as it may, permit me to recommend the 20 dad-centric songs listed below. They\u2019re arranged in no particular order, but each has passed my \u201cjukebox test,\u201d which can be summarized thusly: If I were time-warped to a bar that had a jukebox, would I pay good money to listen to this song even though I can already hear it playing in my head?<\/p>\n

Yes, I would. And here are those songs:<\/p>\n

\u201cFord Fairlane<\/strong>,\u201d Bobby Pinson, 2005, written by Pinson and Kris Bergsnes)<\/p>\n

This is pure poetry in which a battered old car serves as a vivid chronicle of a dad\u2019s love for his son and vice versa. I\u2019ll go out on a limb (where I have extensive real estate holdings) and say that Stephen Sondheim, that master jeweler of American lyricists, never wrote a more profound or moving song than this one. Alan Jackson\u2019s \u201cDrive (For Daddy Gene)\u201d (2002) covers much the same territory but with a lighter touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greatest Man I Never Knew<\/strong>,\u201d Reba McEntire (No. 3, 1992, written by Richard Leigh and Layng Martine Jr.)<\/p>\n

The last lines say it all about this dutiful \u2014 but emotionally distant \u2014 father: \u201cHe was good at business\/But there was business left to do\/He never said he loved me\/Guess he thought I knew.\u201d<\/em> Reba\u2019s will always be the definitive version of this song, but give a listen to the inimitable Billy Dean\u2019s interpretation, as well. It reveals its own set of wounds.<\/p>\n

Embedded from www.youtube.com<\/a>.