Playing the Part
I lost my father this past week. It was a combination of not necessarily unexpected, but yet quite sudden. I thought I might write a post just about him, and the ways he encouraged music and writing in our house. Then I thought, and where I ultimately landed, was that I would instead write a post about the song of mine he claimed to love most —the title track from my first original EP: “The Part to Play.”
My dad had a unique relationship with my, and my brother’s, music. While he was always enthusiastically supportive on a conceptual level, I rarely got the impression that he actually listened to our songs. I say that because his “favorite” song of mine was the only one he would ever mention, and it was conveniently situated on my first EP from almost fifteen years ago. Same for my brother, who has an original song list well into triple digits, but whose cascade of music was often reduced to “his Atari song” — a funny, clever, parody about the namesake video game console, and also situated as the final (secret) track on his first album from 25 years ago.
My dad was immensely proud that we made music, and for him that meant more than any actual achievements we made within the craft itself. It didn’t much matter to him that we wrote good music or not, or if we were playing to full houses or empty rooms, it was that we, his sons, made music at all. For him, that was enough.
In some ways, this shows his endearing commitment to his sons as a father, where the particulars of what we do isn’t necessarily contingent on whether or not what we do has value —something that is often a tripping point for me concerning my own work. In the other direction, I think I would have enjoyed more nuts and bolts shoptalk about our songwriting with him, allowing more of an opportunity to talk about process together, and of the details poured into the work because that’s how I quantify my value as a songwriter.
But there was rarely a musical conversation that went by that my dad didn’t remind me that “The Part to Play” was a fame monster waiting to be unleashed. I didn’t believe that in 2010, and I don’t believe that here in 2024, but I do think this song out kicks its coverage a bit for its era. For as early as this song appeared in my catalog (Song #10), it’s not a terrible entry. Of those first ten songs I wrote, it’s probably one of three that is even listenable these days.
“The Part to Play” suffers a bit from my naivete, and also my insistence on painting in broad, existential strokes, but it does stand on some solid philosophical ground. Though the song was written in reference to romantic relationships, I think it does hit a little different when I’m talking about it in relation to losing someone —someone who loved this specific song, no less.
The song is pretty straightforward: No matter all the moving parts, the complicated circumstances, when “the curtain falls” —whatever you want that metaphor to stand in for— everyone will have played their part, and, ultimately, things will be okay. I think I understand why my dad liked this song, and I think I understand why I wrote this song.
I remember sitting with my friend Jason in the studio on this song —he was engineering the project. The original lyric in the first verse was “sometimes you need to fall to rise.” Jason was musical partners with my older brother, and so had much more experience in these environments than I did. He kindly suggested that perhaps “sometimes you don’t need to fall to rise” might be a stronger lyric. The song is still a little under-cooked, but that subtle change might be the best choice we made on it.
That was a learning moment. It was just a polite nudge —the sort of nudge a good engineer offers— but it showed me how much impact the smallest word choice can have.
Adding the word “don’t” to the lyric brought it out of the realm of cheesy and predictable and into something slightly more surprising. Still weighed down a bit by my approach to lyrics in those days, but beginning to create some tension: Of course you need to fall to rise (Pinterest Motivational Quotes 101), but maybe you don’t need to fall to rise. I don’t think that transforms someone’s view of the world, but it might alter it slightly, which is a start. I want more for my songs than that, but it’s those quiet, stolen moments like that one with Jason that is one of my favorite aspects of songwriting, and watching those little moments as they echo through a song’s life.
I am happy that “The Part to Play” continued to echo for my dad over the last fourteen years, and I am thankful that even when I didn’t, he believed in it. And in me. Rest in peace, dad. I love you.