Dead Daddy Edition - #4

Last Dead Daddy entry and, for me, this was the song that really and truly helped me heal. In it I found the understanding I’d so desperately been seeking.

One Tree Hill by U2

I won’t go into all of my feelings about The Joshua Tree, the album on which this song appears, and how U2 has changed since Rattle and Hum came out. If you’ve known me for any length of time, I’m sure I’ve bored you with my thoughts and theories ad nauseum. I’m sure I’ll get to it here eventually as it’s a big deal for me. Suffice it to say, you know that list of albums you’d want with you if you were stranded on a desert island? This is at the top of my list.

Bono wrote this song about Greg Carroll, his personal assistant and close friend, who died in a motorcycle accident. U2 doesn’t perform this song very often, in fact during an over 20 year career, they’ve played it live a total of 40 times. The reason for this being that it’s an emotionally painful song for them to perform.

I read an interview with Bono in Rolling Stone right after The Joshua Tree was released. In fact, I still have that issue somewhere buried in my closet full o’ crap. In it, they talk about Greg Carroll and Bono tells them that right after Greg died, he’d jump whenever the phone would ring. That he’d dread answering it because he was scared that it would be more bad news of someone else he cared about dying. That totally floored me because that was me. Being able to look back at that time more objectively, of course most grieving people have those same fears. But here was someone I admired, who created music I LOVED and he was having the same issue as me. I fell a little in love with Bono while I read that interview, which made their musical betrayal all the more painful later but that’s another story for another time.

I’ve even written to Bono to let him know how much that song meant to me and how much help and comfort it’s given me over the years. I know, total fan geek. But I had to. Even if he never read it, I knew that I did the best I could to let him know of all the songs in all the world, his is the one that helped to save my life.

Dead Daddy Edition - #3

Ah, where were we? Oh right. Songs that got me through the dead daddy grieving period. Got it.

Our next selection is more here because of who he is than the fact that I found solace in his music.

Valotte - Julian Lennon



Yes, I realize that this link goes to "Too Late for Goodbyes" and not "Valotte". However, it was the album as a whole that I listened to and not one particular song. As I started moving through the Kubler-Ross model (she was brilliant, that one), more than anything I wanted to be able to talk to someone who knew what I was going through. None of my friends had experienced the death of a parent. I wanted that understanding so much that I'd actually get angry when someone would tell me "I know" or "I understand" when I'd attempt to share my pain. Unless they'd been where I was, they couldn't know and it'd piss me off that they'd think they did. To this day, if you tell me that you're dealing with the death of someone close to you, I will offer to listen. If you need my empathetic ear, I will walk through fire, break down doors, hell I'd even give up Diet Coke to help you however I can. And good whatever lord help you if it's the death of your father with which you're dealing. You will not find a more willing person to help you however she can.

But back to the music. I don't remember what exactly led me to Julian Lennon but his experiences so mirrored my own, I just knew (in all my teenage wisdom) that he'd understand the pain, anger, grief with which I was dealing. Let's run through the simliarities, shall we?

• He and his father hadn't been especially close while he was growing up. Wow, neither had me and my dad.
• He was rebuilding his relationship with his father when his dad died. Hey, me too!
• He was 17 when his father died. I was 16 when mine died.

Of course there was never any chance for me to actually talk with Julian, to pick his brain about how he dealt with his grief, but for me there was still a connection. Because of him, I knew there was at least one other person in the world who knew where I was coming from. Yeah, yeah, I know (and knew) I wasn't the first teenager whose father had died but there were times when it felt like it.

Besides, this was a good album. I was sorry to read some years later that Julian hadn't liked it. He felt that others had imposed their musical will on him and he ended up recording music that wasn't fully expressive of him. Personally, I think he maybe liked Stoli and cranberry juice a little too much at the time, but that's just me. (Yes, I remember reading in an interview that Stoli and cranberry juice was his favorite drink. I'll remember it until the day I die because it's absolutely non-vital to my existence).

At any rate, thank you, Julian. Thank you for being there for me when I needed you.

Dead Daddy Edition - #2

Today we're onto the 2nd song that helped me deal with the grief of losing my father. I'll assume you don't know anything about me so I'll provide some backstory for this one.

My maternal grandfather was a minister. While I never met him (died before I was born), my mother and grandmother (the two people who I lived with and who raised me) made sure we went to church every Sunday. I went to Sunday School, was involved in the youth group, was an acolyte (we lit the altar candles during the church service) and I was even a lectern assistant (which meant I read the bible verse during the service). I'd tried to be an usher but the men who were in charge of that always kind of put me off whenever I'd ask. Personally, I think that it was considered a man's thing to do and they didn't want some young girl passing the offering plate. Not fact, just my take on it.

Anywho, by 16 I'd already begun to be disillusioned with the hypocrisy of organized religion, and our congregation in particular. So many of them were good Christians for a couple hours on Sundays but once they left that sanctuary, fuhgeddaboudit. Dad dying had ripped the rose colored glasses through which I viewed the world from my eyes and I'd started spiraling into massive cynicism. Really not conducive to faith in a God who was letting me feel such pain (that was my mindset at the time), you know? Not too long after Dad had died, I was sitting in church with my mom and I just couldn't take it. I had to leave or I'd lose it. Violently. I left and drove around listening to this song for a couple hours until I had to go back to pick my mom up.

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

It's not very shocking why this song appealed to me. I mean, the lyrics really say it all:

See my old man's got a problem
He lives with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give

My parents had divorced when I was 4. My mom had sole custody. It fit me in so many ways and on that Sunday, when I was hurting and angry, it was just what I needed.

Dead Daddy Edition - #1

Great theme for the first week, don't you think? Ah, love morbidity. So for what purpose am I talking about dead dads? Well, my father died from alcoholism when I was 16. To say his death changed my life would be a slight understatement. One of the things that got me through that time was music. There were four songs in particular that I would listen to repeatedly, that would become a lifeline for me during a really horrible time in my life.

To that end, each day this week I'm going to post a song that helped me get through and share a bit about what the song meant to me. And probably some other crap too because when I'm typing, I type a LOT.

First up is Tender Love by the Force MD's.





Why on earth would an instrumental version of a pop song have been so important to me? Let me 'splain. My father went into the hospital on a Friday night with massive internal bleeding. I saw him on Saturday. Sunday, March 23rd, I had rehearsal with my school's choir. We were leaving Monday to go to Hawaii to compete. We were good and ended up with a gold medal that year. But still, it was at rehearsal that my mom came down to the school with the news my father had died. Having already paid for the trip, I still went to Hawaii. It was surreal and difficult to say the least. I spent most of my down time sitting on the balcony of my room, listening to the instrumental version of this song. I had the 45 at home which had the full version of the song on one side, instrumental on the other. I liked the instrumental version better and had taped it (yes, on a cassette tape - this was 1986) for the trip. This became my solace. I didn't want to talk to anyone and no one knew what the hell to say to me. How do you console someone in that situation when you're only a teenager and don't know shit yourself? It was hard, not only for me. And so my choir friends all left me to my grief and the Force MD's. This song evokes such a visceral reaction in me that just a couple years ago when, by pure chance, I heard it on the radio, it hit me like a punch in the gut. I hadn't heard it in ages and here it was, this song whose only association for me is pain. Next year will be 25 years that he's been gone and while he was a shitty father, he was still mine and there were good times along with the bad.

Gone on long enough. Told you I'd write too much. :-) Are there any songs that got you through a rough time in your life? If you'd be so kind, please tell me about them. I'd love to hear your stories, too.