“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
- Anne Sexton
I didn't plan for lyric Friday to have a theme (for me), but a couple of father/daughter songs turned up in my orbit this week so it seemed like a thing to do. It's that time of year, lots of dads sending daughters off to college for the first time. Here goes.
Three Angels/Will Kimbrough: Kimbrough is probably the most jaw-dropping guitar player I've ever seen up close. I saw him play twice at Otherlands Coffee Bar in Memphis. Both times there might have been 40 people there. I'm talking about a guy who is an instrumentalist from another galaxy. He's the kind of guy who makes regular players want to go home and just bust up their guitars for fire wood. Why bother? It's funny to me that folks fork out a lot of money to go see people who could not carry his guitar case, but…whatcha gonna do? If I listed all the people's records he's played on, all the albums he's produced and all the artists who have covered his songs, well, we'd be here a while. Among his many accolades, he was named Instrumentalist of the Year by the Americana Music Association. He was also a member of Todd Snider's band, The Nervous Wrecks, and if he had never done anything else, that would still put him in great stead with me. The clip I have here does not spotlight his guitar chops, but it's a sweet song about his girls.
Everyone has angels looking over them
There was a time when I just could not see
Now I know the truth is I'm a lucky man indeed
Everybody has an angel, I've got three
Heaven/Live: Along with eight million other Americans, I bought Live's 1994 CD Throwing Copper. I played that thing to death. I still have it. I keep it around because it brings back good memories. Live, released several albums but Copper is their jewel. The song here, though, in keeping with the theme, is from the 2003 album, Birds of Pray.
I don't need no one
To tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe
I don't need no proof when it come to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive
Daughter/Loudon Wainwright III: I've held forth on my admiration for Wainwright and his songwriting. Funny thing though, of the hundreds of songs he's recorded, this is the only one I know of that he didn't write. It was penned by Peter Blegvad. Most people know it from the soundtrack of the movie, Knocked Up.
Every time she blinks
She strikes somebody blind
Everything she thinks
Blows her tiny mind
That's my daughter in the water
Every time she fell I caught her
Every time she fell
That's my daughter in the water
I lost every time I fought her
I lost every time