I’ve often compared editing an anthology to creating the ultimate mixtape. Both projects hinge around conjuring a variety of experiences and moods as you move through the songs or the book. What My Father and I Don’t Talk About illuminates the ways in which we can and can’t talk to our fathers. Here are some of the songs I was thinking about as I wrote my own essay and edited all of the other pieces by fifteen contributors:
“Gracie” by Ben Folds
A gorgeous, moving song Ben wrote about his daughter, and it makes my husband (who is the father of two boys) cry. Okay, I teared up too—especially when I heard Ben Folds perform it last year at the Brooklyn Paramount. The part that really gets my husband is when Ben sings: “You nodded off in my arms watching TV/I won’t move you an inch/Even though my arm’s asleep.” Time can pass by all too quickly, and sweet and fleeting moments like that are to be treasured. No matter how old I am, I’ll always think of myself as my dad’s little girl. He has three daughters and one son, but I think his daughters are perpetually frozen at the same age in his mind.
“Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers
Phoebe Bridgers had a complicated relationship with her dad and acknowledged that fact in interviews. What I love about this song is the push/pull of not wanting to forgive someone for their wrongdoings but also reserving the right to change your mind. “I don’t forgive you/But please don’t hold me to it.” How we feel about our parents can evolve over time as we move through the world and gain new insights into our upbringing.
“Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” by Train
Pat Monahan has mentioned in interviews that the song was inspired by a dream he had after his mother passed away. Some of the essays in this book deal with fathers who are no longer around. Grief is a complex thing, and even more so if the relationship was complicated to begin with. I’ve always felt like the lyrics are a little ridiculous, but you can’t deny that they are catchy. And I love the idea that when someone dies, they aren’t really gone—their memory stays with us as we move throughout our daily lives. I have fond memories of my father cranking the volume up when this song came on the radio and singing along to it.
“Forever Young” by Bob Dylan
In the essay that I wrote for this collection, I talk about my father’s home office being a shrine to his eternal youth. He lines the walls with objects that bring him back to earlier days. A lot of dads are nostalgic for the past. Dylan wrote this song for his son Jakob, but I think of it as an anthem many men live by—for better and for worse. It’s part of what makes so many fathers charming, but it’s also a shield that can keep dads from fully growing up.
“Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin
Andrew Altschul’s essay “Little Boy Blue & the Man in the Moon” is named for this classic song about fatherhood, and one of my favorite passages addresses the painful truth of the lyrics. Andrew writes: “I couldn’t have understood, back in the days when it was popular, that I saw my father and myself in it. It was too early for that. My relationship with my father seemed perfectly normal in those days—it was perfectly normal. And that’s the song’s real tragedy: not that fathers and sons don’t want to be close, but that they can’t acknowledge this need. They can’t act on it. They—we—are taught to ignore it, endure it, put it in its proper place.” If there’s one lesson I want readers to take away from What My Father and I Don’t Talk About, it’s that they have the power to break cycles and resist the old way of doing things.
“The Living Years” by Mike & The Mechanics
“Stilted conversations/I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got.” Unfortunately, some dads suck at communicating. I’ll always associate this song with a friend of mine who was hit by a truck and killed when he was a teenager. It’s one of the songs that was played at his funeral, so I can’t listen to this particular track without crying. As cheesy as this song can be, it gets at a simple truth: we never know how much time we’ll have with our loved ones. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to have tough conversations before it’s too late.
“Nowhere Man” by The Beatles
Some of the dads in What My Father and I Don’t Talk About are or were lost in different ways. Lost to time or grief or aging or addiction. Lost to patriarchal norms and toxic masculinity. I can’t think of a better song to capture the feeling of aimlessly drifting throughlife. And “Isn’t he a bit like you and me?” is a good reminder that it’s easy to take after our parents, even if we don’t want to admit it.
“Tropic Morning News” by The National
I couldn’t work on a project about fathers without listening to one of my favorite bands. The National are affectionately known as the Sad Dads. First Two Pages of Frankenstein was on repeat while I edited . “I was suffering more than I let on/The tropic morning news was on/There’s nothing stopping me now/From saying all the painful parts out loud.” Matt Berninger co-wrote the song with his wife, Carin Besser, and the title comes from a phrase she invented to talk about doomscrolling. “It became a song about having a hard time expressing yourself, and trying to connect with someone when the noise of the world is drowning out any potential for conversation,” Berninger says on 4AD’s website. What My Father And I Don’t Talk About has a similar idea behind it, both in longing for a deeper connection and how difficult that can be in the world we live in.
“Winter” by Tori Amos