Estranged Son of David Allan Coe Reflects on Late Country Star’s “Eternally Confused and Confusing” Legacy

Country music has bid farewell to one of its most fascinating and polarizing figures. David Allan Coe, whose hits included “You Never Even Called Me by My Name”, “Longhaired Redneck” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”, died the evening of Wednesday (April 29) at age 86. Releasing 42 albums across nearly six decades, Coe also penned Tanya Tucker’s 1973 hit “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)” and the 1977 Johnny Paycheck classic “Take This Job and Shove It”.

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As tributes pour in for the man who truly embodied the outlaw lifestyle he sang about, Coe’s estranged son, Tyler Mahan Coe, delivered his own. And he made no attempt to neatly package his father’s fraught legacy.

One of four children with the singer’s wife Jody, Tyler was well acquainted with his father on a personal and professional level. He began performing onstage with his father at age 3 in the late 1980s, before leading the DAC Band for 13 years.

However, their relationship soured around 2013. In a video posted to his Patreon, Tyler revealed that they remained estranged at the time of the outlaw country legend’s death.

“David Allen Coe was always a difficult person to be close with, a difficult person to care about for several reasons,” he said. “Nobody who ever knew him would disagree with that statement. But I did always care about him, even after it became clear that he and I were never going to speak to each other again. I never wanted anything bad to happen to him.”

“That’s Just DAC”: Tyler Mahan Cohen Wrestles With Dad’s Legacy

Continuing, Tyler emphasized, “I do hate the choices he made for how to spend the final decade or so of his life, but I didn’t hate him. And those were his choices to make. Anyone who knows anything about that man knows how useless it would be to try to get him to make different choices. If that were possible, his career would have gone way differently and his legacy would probably be a lot better than whatever it’s going to end up being now. Presumably some kind of eternally confused and confusing mess.”

[RELATED: Crafting Life From a Place of Death: How David Allan Coe Launched His Career]

David Allan Coe frequently complained of feeling “misunderstood” by both listeners and the Nashville establishment. And a big part of that, Tyler said, was his dogged insistence on portraying all sides of himself in his work.

“In fact, this is a phrase he constantly used when describing his approach to making music,” Tyler said. “He was trying to use songs to paint a picture for the audience. And I think the schizophrenic nature of his discography is partly a product of him trying not to leave out any part of the picture he saw. Trying to paint the entire thing, even though the very nature of individual human existence meant he was the only one who could see it.”

In the end, the C*caine & Rhinestones podcast host is left with three words he has found himself uttering countless times. “That’s just DAC.”

Featured image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum