The best thing my Dad ever did for me was buy me a guitar. He was kind of a mess otherwise. My folks split when I was rather young. For a while, Wednesday visitation with my Dad was spent driving to the city and taking Flamenco guitar lessons. The memories from then are a little hazier every year and another year has gone by. I remember flash cards with notes on them; I remember listening to the teacher play and watching my Dad close his eyes and listen. You could almost see the stress leaving his body as he was soothed by the music.
I learned a lot about music walking up and down the creaky old wooden steps to the studio. The way up was always a rush, "Hurry, Danny, we're late." The guitar case, nearly as big as I was at 5 years old, banging against my leg as I tried to keep up. The way down entirely different, relaxed, calm, "Should we stop for an ice cream?" Once in a while he would grab me up and with the guitar in one hand and me in the other, he'd bound down the stairs and say, "Let's go to the zoo!"
It was the music that did it. He loved music. He played the piano and could play pretty well. I can't hear "Autumn Leaves" without thinking, "My Dad can play that better." Maybe it's just a memory, I don't know.
What makes me sad on Father's Day is he never really got to hear me play well. It took too long. I should have listened to him and practiced more. I should have listened to him and worked harder, but I didn't and it took too long. After he disappeared for a while, I did get to play for him and he for me again. He played for me a song that he had written and it was beautiful. I had a gorgeous Gibson ES-345; he admired it and listened to me play it, although unplugged. That was it. I played a song I had written for the band but it wasn't very good on one guitar and without an amp you couldn't tell how cool it would sound. We talked about music and maybe getting lessons again. A few months later he was dead.
I never said some things I should have. I wrote a song about it. For a few years in a row I submitted the link to FARK.com
The response there has always been great. It's the comments there I think about on this Father's Day. How thousands of people responded to it. Not in a club or at a venue but on YouTube and a silly internet community of snarky nerds.
The comments there are a fascinating read; catharsis is the word that comes to mind.
Happy Father's Day. What would you say to your father today if you could? (w/voting)
"Dear Daddy, Here's what I should have said to you." DIT
How the world has changed, Daddy. Not many of those 2-story walkups in the Bronx remain. Thousand of people can see me play on the internet and hundreds of them listen every day. I'm not a little boy anymore wishing I had a Dad. I'm a Grampa and my hair is gray and I can play the guitar really well now. How I wish he could hear me now. Sometime today I will get out my old guitar and wander down by the lake and play my Dad his song. I don't really think he can hear it, nor will he ever know how many people he touched. Music is like that. The same song affects many people in many different ways. His song is one of those songs. It doesn't matter what the lyrics are or which notes are which.
Almost 50 years later I can see a tear running down his cheek as my old guitar teacher plays a beautiful song. That is what changed my life. Not the guitar, not the teacher, not the trips to the zoo, but seeing my big, strong Dad cry at the sound of a beautiful song.
It has been my lifelong dream to have my music touch people that way. There in the room full of people, speakers blaring, lights blinking, you look out in the crowd and see someone moved by the song you play to the emotion they feel. Most of those people I will never meet one-on-one, an intimate moment with a stranger.
How precious a gift he gave me, music. How Fatherly of him to let me see him cry that way, moved that way. He felt a failure, I'm sure, at the end of his life, shot dead by the police. If I could, I would tell him that he gave me purpose. I would tell him that music became the center of my life and it has seen me through the worst of times. It saved my life and changed the lives of others who have heard me play, and those I've taught to play. What better gift could a father give a son? His legacy is, he gave me a legacy to leave behind me when I go. Thanks Dad... for everything.
So tell me, what would you say to your Father today if you could?
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