There are a great many sad songs in the world, but it is my belief that only the sad songs you heard as a child can truly speak to the strange and the inchoate sadness in your individual soul. If you grew up on Billy Joel, only Billy Joel can break your heart (I have a deeply specific musical frame of reference; it cannot be helped).
Growing up, in our house there were roughly six CDs on rotation at any given time: an instrumental album by Jim Brickman, Billy Joel’s “An Innocent Man,” the soundtrack to the film The Mission, the soundtrack to the film Dances With Wolves, whichever Bobby Darin album had both “Lazy River” and “Black Coffee and Cigarettes” on it, and Dan Fogelberg’s Greatest Hits.
(I have a deeply specific musical frame of reference; it still cannot be helped.)
This leads me to my thesis: that Dan Fogelberg’s “Leader of the Band” is the saddest song about fathers ever written, sadder than the entire output of noted Dad-haters Everclear, sadder even than Harry Chapin’s more overt ode to sad dads, “Cat’s In the Cradle.” There may be sadder songs about different subjects, of course; an argument can certainly be made that Jim Croce’s “Operator” is the saddest song about gentlemanly resignation ever written. But there is a special kind of sadness you can only feel about your own father, and Fogelberg captures it better than Chapin ever could, mostly through the strategic use of French horns.
It is a nakedly sincere song; embarrassingly sincere. “Cat’s In the Cradle,” while equally sincere, is about a much more specific type of Boomer-style fatherly shortcomings. Also — and this should not be discounted — it is sung by the father about his child; “Leader of the Band” is sung by the child about his father. Lucie Arnaz sings it about her father Desi sometimes while holding his old straw bandleader’s hat, which is inexpressibly sad.
You may or may not relate to “Cat’s In the Cradle;” your father may or may not have left you. But your father is certainly going to die someday, if he has not already, no matter how much you might want him to live; you must relate to “Leader of the Band” whether you like it or not. Someday, like Dan Fogelberg, you may realize that “Papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough,” but there will be no one left to say it to. There is a finite number of times you can tell your father that you love him.
Dan Fogelberg died in 2007; he has no children. I don’t know if that makes “Leader” more or less heartbreaking. “My brothers’ lives were different/ For they heard another call/ One went to Chicago/ And the other to St. Paul.” I don’t know why that’s the part that always puts me on the floor, but there it is. Your brothers’ lives will be different from yours. They will live in one city, and you will live in another. Then you will have children and they will grow up and move to different cities, too. [Music break.]
“I thank you for the music,” Dan sings, “and your stories of the road/ I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go/ I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough/ And Papa, I don’t think I said I love you near enough.” There it is again.
My father is the only person in my family who can play the piano. My brother plays other instruments, but he does not play the piano often. If I walk in the door of my parents’ house and someone is playing “If Love Were All,” I know exactly who it is. No one else knows how to play that song.
If you had a father who was good to you, “Leader of the Band” is the saddest song in the world. If you had a father you did not appreciate as much as you could have, “Leader of the Band” feels like an accusation crawling up out of the earth and calling your name.
When my father was in seminary, he and a friend of his would periodically scrawl the word “Menachem” over the many BEGIN FREEWAY signs that dotted that Pasadena landscape. Your father will make it impossible for you not to think of him by the time he leaves the world. There will be too many landmarks left behind.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
Tags: dads, dan fogelberg, harry chapin, music, sadness
why do you have to do this to me
I’m refusing to even listen to the song, because the article was bad enough.
(I’m confused about why I don’t know the song off the top of my head. My curiosity if I’ll recognize it when I hear it is growing, but still resisting.)
Because Dan did it to us first.
Ugh, Mallory. Now I am crying at my desk.
Also, we have pretty much the same frame of musical reference. It’s been a long time since I listened to The Innocent Age over and over again, but I guess that will be today.
Sorry, all parents are eternal and never die. Nice try though.
Oh, man. Now my afternoon will be me endlessly listening to soft rock songs about fathers and children.
Next up, Mike and the Mechanics’ The Living Years. And maybe some Kenny Loggins. And Billy Joel. And…
None as sad as this particular song. Nope. Not possible.
Except that I forgot Time In a Bottle was written for Jim Croce’s son. And as it is one of my mother’s favorite songs, I can’t even imagine how much I will howl/cry every time I hear it if she ever dies (which I’m not allowing to happen).
The Living Years was a song my dad really enjoyed. After his death, it’s a hard one to listen to. (Leader of the Band was another.) And then Kenny Loggins and Billy Joel have their sad dad songs in The One that got Away and Lullaby (Goodnight my Angel) respectively. But there’s just something about Leader of the Band that puts it ahead of the rest. Except for maybe Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven.
Dad-haters they may be, but Everclear were pretty rad back in the day. Not so anymore. Like so many bands from those halcyon days that were the 1990s, they still exist in some form, releasing music you don’t want to hear. Now there’s something sad.
I respectfully disagree about the radness of Everclear.
Flashback to high school. A heated argument against a backdrop of beige lockers. A basketball jock in a too-big t-shirt says I’m a fag for listening to Everclear. His underwear extends at least three inches above the waist of his sweat pants. He prefers Dr. Dre, rap-rock. What year is this? Ah, nostalgia.
The present day. Everclear was one of the first bands I was really into. It was, like, you know, they got me or something. Their lyrics meant something, you know? (Didn’t everything back then mean something? Everything is so hollow now). In retrospect, a lot of their output is admittedly generic, dare I say mediocre, but they do have some really good songs that I will continue to listen to long into my thirties, at least. Probably. Maybe I could do a career-spanning mixtape. Remember those? Nostalgia indeed.
Oh god. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the song and I still haven’t, because I can’t bring myself to play it after having looked up and read the lyrics. I feel like I’ll sit there and think horrible, sad things like, “When my dad dies, I won’t be able to hear this.” Which hello, my dad is still around and wonderful, I don’t need to preemptively get sad about when he dies (which oh god I hope is never ever).
So, we held my dad’s memorial service this past weekend. At the reception, we played a selection of Dad songs from his iPod, including Jim Croce, Harry Chapin and Billy Joel. But we didn’t put this one in the mix, because it was so sad we didn’t think we could play it without scream-crying and running out of the church.
(How do you do this, Mallory? It’s like you’re a witch or something.)
My old grade-school principal (who has been, by all accounts, a great dad) used to say that he asked his family to play Bill Cosby comedy tapes (the Noah’s Ark stuff) at his wake, because he didn’t want people crying. He’s still with us, and I don’t know whether he has changed his mind, but I kind of think that people would still cry, and maybe Bill Cosby tapes would make his family sad after that. I don’t know. I do, however, like the idea of genuinely laughing at a wake.
whaddabout the saddest dad song written about a dad by a tragic dad played in my childhood by my great dad? ‘my father’s eyes’ by eric clapton.
NO NO NO my dad is NOT going to die
(I mean he is and maybe soonish because he is not well but NO HE IS NOT GOING TO DIE)
I’m not crying
“Then you will have children and they will grow up and move to different cities, too. [Music break.]”
More bleak folk-y than soft rock-y, but see also John Prine’s “Hello in There.” Great for feeling personally guilty about the inevitable passage of time!
For me, the sad dad song to beat all sad dad songs will always be Patty Griffin’s Top of the World. She sings in both the voice of the father and the daughter, and it’s so, so, so sad.
SHUT UP DO NOT MENTION THAT SAD SONG. I thought it was man with dead wife, though.
Oh Jesus Lord, that song.
YES. The Dixie Chicks cover of it is good, too.
“The Long Ride Home” by Patty Griffin is the “unappreciated dead wife” song. Possibly the saddest in that category.
melis, please give me a song for people who don’t have dads and have not had dads since they were two and can never decide whether that’s damaging or not.
Or people who have terrible dads and whose lives became markedly better when they cut off all contact and they suspect that they’d probably be more damaged if those dads were still around.
The dad is dead in “Styrofoam Plates” by Death Cab For Cutie, but he’s a real asshole. (That was my related jam both before and after my dad died.)
This is the saddest Dad song ever. My Dad is very ill right now. I am never listening to Dan Fogelberg again ! He also sings several heartbreaking Bad Breakup songs that make me sad even though I am married to my college sweetheart and have never been broken up
They are that sad
Hello, Mallory. Please stop making me, a grown man tear up. Just kidding, I love it. My dad and mom had a cassette of this in their terrible old astrovan that we would take camping on the coast. It’s killing me. I’m going to call my dad tonight.
The eight year anniversary of my dad’s death was less than a week ago. And I did have a dad that I did not appreciate as much as I absolutely should have. So, Mallory, I’m gonna take you at your word on this one.
xoxoxoxoxo, so sorry
Although it doesn’t have quite the same significance for me as Leader of the Band, Peter Gabriel’s Father Son is another beautiful song written for the singer’s father http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQH6qu2pHT8
AAAAH I thought I was the only person who grew up being forced to listen The Mission soundtrack!! I sort of grew to love it though. Our dads should be friends.
Emmylou Harris – Bang The Drum Slowly. Getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TisTLFIz7BA
YES. The Dixie Chicks cover of it is good, too.
"The Long Ride Home" by Patty Griffin is the "unappreciated dead wife" song. Possibly the saddest in that category.