Dear Dad Song

[Vinnie Frevert]

Havingbeen close with his sister and parents, it was clear that the memory of those strange years always hovered somewhere near the surface. Jack was scrappy and defiant. He was a rule-breaker. He fought and caused trouble and was free and filled with electricity. I had never met anyone like him. When I found myself at the piano writing his song, a letter really, it was because that spirit of defiance and the freight train of history behind it had started to work against him. He was finding more trouble than he could manage and, as someone who had mentored and befriended him, it broke my heart to watch.

The irony or fate of that name came to bear on my very first tour for the project, when, after weeks of sore throats and a trip to the doctor, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the very same disease that afflicted Jack so many years before. At the time, I took it as a sign that whatever weird road I would soon be wandering was the right one and now, more than 10 years later, I believe it to be so.

And hey, look, we aren\u2019t that big of a deal. But among Canada\u2019s active folk-rock acts, we might crack the top 20, and when it comes to actually representing Canada in our music, well, we have like five or six tunes explicitly about something Canadian (the new album has an absolute gem in this genre, by the way). There\u2019s \u201CPoutine\u201D. There\u2019s \u201CVictory Square\u201D. And the whole reason we started doing this is because of the influence of one Stan Rogers, Canada\u2019s greatest ever folk songwriter, who before his tragic death had planned out entire albums based on various regions and towns in Canada.

\u201CDear Old Stan\u201D had been floating around in my head right up to the recording sessions, but I didn\u2019t include it on our list. It seemed too personal to make the album, because it was about us and our admiration for one guy, not something you\u2019d necessarily see anyone else singing, you know? But at the last minute I pulled out the lyrics sheets, the guys loved it, and we knocked it out quickly before shutting all the gear down on the last day.

Now, to answer the question we always get about this song: yes, the last verse is an accurate retelling of what made me start this band. They actually sang \u201Cthank pod we\u2019re homeward bound\u201D. Come ON, hippies. Not everything in this world is yours to mangle in the name of imagined moral purity. But thanks for the inspiration, I guess?

Moreover, I am so proud of the lines about my childhood; my mum cried when she heard the bit about her singing to me, and my dad said he was taken back to the days when little 5 year-old me would march around the house singing \u201CHE WAS THE CAAAAAAPTAIN OF THE NIGHTINGALE\u201D at the top of my lungs. The song was for them.

You guys are great. This is a song I love very much and I hope you do too. I'm at an age now, I'm just gonna be honest, I'll tell you when I hit it and when I don't. I love this song. I love playing this song, I love everything about this song. I learned a lot from this song, because when I wrote this song I thought it was nothing. And then it sort of grew. It had a lot of space in it that became something very meaningful to me. It goes like this, it's called "Dear Marie."

JM: Sometimes - well, no. I mean, it's difficult to talk about making your dreams - so many people haven't even made their dreams happen, I'd think it would be difficult for me to sit here behind this microphone and say: Well, something funky happens when you get your dreams. It happens to be true, but it's difficult to talk about it without people saying, well - you know...

JM: I mean, look, there's enough people who are trying to make their dreams happen. But, you know, for that song it makes sense. And by the way, it's also not like, rendering a judgment, either. I mean, that's the kind of writing I like.

JM: Well, I'm not saying it's better or worse, you know? I'm saying I got my dream, but you got a family. The "but" is very important - well, I got my dream but you got a family is just - for one second - wondering whether that was the way it should have gone. I think that's fair to say without being infuriating to people who are like hey, man, I'm still demo-ing stuff in my basement to try to make it - you know.

Have you ever thought about how many songs with dear in the title have been written? This list ranks the best songs with dear in the name, regardless of genre. Most of the tracks listed here are songs that start with dear, but almost all of them have different lyrical interpretations, despite the commonality of having the word dear in the title. This ranked poll includes songs like "Dear Prudence" by The Beatles, and "Martha My Dear" by The Beatles. If you think a good song with dear in the title is missing from this list, go ahead and add it so others can vote for it too. Songs with dear in the lyrics are only allowed if that word is in the song's name as well.

Perhaps the richest vein in traditional music expresses first-persondispleasure over abandonment by a lover. Conventionally, if thenarrator is male, the abandonee is confused or angered (or both) by thelover's inconstancy. That fits the old concept of woman as property.Conversely, a female narrator tends to dwell on past memories andsorrow over a lover that is all too constant: constantly missing, thatis, often leaving only a baby behind as a momento that he once caredfor her.

The abandonment songs seldom go into specifics, so they tend tocollectverses from each other. That makes it hard to separate them intodistinct songs. Some, such as The Wagonner's Lad, remain fairlypure.Others, such as the Fond Affection family, become quitemuddled. Thismonth's song is unmuddled, perhaps because it's a recomposition on thetheme by a skilled traditional singer, Jean Ritchie.

The Ritchie family, from Viper, Kentucky, was a rich trove ofAppalachian music. Cecil Sharp, the English folklorist, collected songsfrom Jean's aunts in 1917. Jean's sister Edna once recorded a songcalled Dear Companion that used a modal tune and a text I'dclassifyas Fond Affection. Jean, in 1963, wrote this cogent, poeticversionand composed a clean tune to go with it. I had her recording of itonce, but lost it somewhere. When I met up with the song again, on afavorite 1978 LP by the San Francisco all-female Any Old Time StringBand (fortunately reissued as Arhoolie CD 433, I Bid You Goodnight),I learned it and have been singing it ever since without anyself-consciousness about being the wrong gender for the song. If you'remale and have a problem with it, it's easy enough to change "he" to"she," but then the form of the plaint won't fit the traditional mold.

In looking through my LP collection, I find two otherslightly-variantrenditions of Jean's song: Alice Gerrard & Mike Seeger (Greenhays /Flying Fish, 1980) and Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & EmmylouHarris on Trio (Warner Bros., 1987). I'm sticking with myversionfrom the Any Old Time ladies, particularly since I find I've changedthe tune slightly in the years I've been singing it. Incidentally, the8/4 time notation isn't a modernist affectation. I found I had fewerties crossing bar lines this way, and it fits the poetic metricalstresses better.

3. Oh have you seen my dear companion,

For he was all this world to me;

But now the stars have turned against me,

And so he cares no more for me.

I wish I was some sparrow flying,

I'd fly to a high and lonesome place,

There join the bluebirds in their crying

Remembering you and your dear face.

MercyMe is one of my favorite musical groups. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but I am especially drawn to music with profound Christian lyrics. Bart Millard is the lead singer of MercyMe and writes or co-writes the lyrics to most of their songs.

The 2015 Tony Award-winning musical has been a huge hit the world over, so it made sense in 2018 when Universal Pictures bought the rights to make a movie version, with many of the team behind the stage show also coming on board.

When you think about what's actually going on in this song, you realise what a creep Evan is! That aside, this song was okay. It had a clunky start, but I really liked Zoe's interjection of "I do that ironically". The exposition actually works and is helpful, and Kaitlyn's voice meshes nicely with Ben's.

I always forget how much I like this song, but it's actually very sweet. Ben and Kaitlyn are great in this, but the treatment of the song on screen is a little boring. It does culminate in Evan and Zoe kissing for the first time though, which is fun!

I guess this is like the flagship song of Dear Evan Hansen, as the title has been featured prominently as a hashtag on the posters since the beginning. It begins after Evan falls over whilst giving a speech on stage, which is similar to how it happens in the show and works well as a sequence.

During this song in the show, production depicts a big social media storm, which translated well to the screen and even mentioned BuzzFeed very briefly! My only issue with this song is that the chorus sounds like so many other tracks to me, including "Get Right" by JLo. Am I alone on this?

This is really masterful. I was worried as I watching the film that Heidi Hansen wouldn't have any songs, with both "Anybody Have A Map?" and "Good For You" seemingly not being performed. They do, however, feature as instrumental versions played by a marching band during a pep rally scene towards the start of the film.

This song was written for the character of Connor and doesn't appear in the musical. It starts off non-diegetic (not occurring in the "world" of the film), but it's eventually revealed that Connor is singing the song and playing the guitar on a video recording of a group therapy session, which is a really lovely progression.

It's certainly faithful to the stage version and Nik Dodani as Jared is good, but he's unfortunately not as charismatic Will Roland or Jack Loxton were on Broadway and the West End, respectively. Which is shame, because "Sincerely, Me" is really Jared's time to shine!

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