5 Songs Guaranteed to Make Dads Weep

Here we are in the month of Father’s Day, a time when Dads are lauded by their families and friends. And there are plenty of songs out there that honor fathers and all the sacrifices that they make.

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But we’re here to talk about the songs that show how fatherhood can prove quite tricky. These five wonderful songs might have dear old Dad weeping for all the wrong reasons.

“She’s Leaving Home” by The Beatles from ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ (1967)

Give credit to The Beatles for at least giving the parents a voice in this tearjerker inspired by a newspaper article about a teenage runaway. Most other rock and rollers at the time wouldn’t even have considered it. That said, the father in “She’s Leaving Home” completely misses the boat when trying to figure out why his daughter split. As voiced by John Lennon, he rages with righteous indignation about her selfishness. That changes in the final refrain, when he realizes the error of his ways in an extremely touching moment.

“Tears Of Rage” by The Band from ‘Music From Big Pink’ (1968)

“Tears Of Rage” was composed during the famed Basement Tapes sessions of 1967. Bob Dylan wrote the lyrics from a piece of music composed by Richard Manuel of The Band. We chose to highlight The Band’s version because Manuel’s towering vocal captures all the desperate emotions of the harried father telling the story. Dylan must have been reading King Lear before he wrote this one. The narrator’s disbelief at the ingratitude he imagines from his daughter holds a certain Shakespearean tragic grandeur.

“Slip Slidin’ Away” by Paul Simon from ‘Greatest Hits, Etc.’ (1977)

Simon released this song as a standalone single and as part of a greatest hits package. “Slip Slidin’ Away” touches on the way that life can get away from you, almost without you even realizing it. To make his point, Simon uses a series of vignettes. The one that takes place in the middle eight involves a father who has clearly shirked his responsibilities over the years. He decides to make a journey to explain why he didn’t make his son a priority. But in the end, he can’t follow through with it, not even waking his son to tell him he visited.

“Still Fighting It” by Ben Folds from ‘Rockin’ The Suburbs’ (2001)

Folds wrote a couple of songs for his children. “Gracie”, found on Songs For Silverman, is more light-hearted and positive in tone. On “Still Fighting It”, written for his song Louis, he sounds like a new father struggling with doubts about what’s to come. As is usually the case with Folds, the song comes adorned with a stirring melody. After imagining a future in which he’s out eating fast food with his boy, the father tells the son to expect some bumps along the way, in part because of his heritage: “And you’re so much like me, I’m sorry.”

“Wandering Boy” by Randy Newman from ‘Dark Matter’ (2017)

The final song on Randy Newman’s most recent studio album (Dark Matter), “Wandering Boy” could leave anyone, not just Dads, in a puddle once they realize the story of the song. It concerns a father who goes to a party that he and his family have been frequenting for years. Seeing a young boy playing around, he immediately thinks back to his own son and his once-promising past. It becomes clear that the boy has fallen on hard times and that the father no longer has any contact with him. “Push him toward the light,” the Dad pleads to anyone who might see the wayward lad.

David Redfern/Redferns