Music And Parenthood

I've always been surrounded by music.

My Dad is what my best mate would call a music snob. Despite being born in '70, he listens only to songs released from the ‘50s to the ‘80s, refusing to listen to anything later than the mid-2000s. My Mum, despite being seven years older, is easy in comparison, often grooving out to modern pop songs on the radio even if she doesn't know the words.

Regardless of what was his cup of tea, my Dad would always be singing along to the radio, or stereo. There wasn't a day that went by without him belting out Don Henley's The Boys Of Summer, or crooning through More Than Words by Extreme.

As a result, there are some songs that remind me of moments in my life, that bring back memories so clearly it feels like they happened was only yesterday.

Long car rides are lit alight with Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, the windows down, sun pouring endlessly into the car, wind rushing past, whipping my hair back.

ACDC’s Thunderstruck transports me back to when our rugby team would score, how Dad would grab me and jump all around the room, whooping like it was him who’d scored.

Painting my playhouse — grounded with actual cement and with proper installation because Dad never did anything half-arsed, especially not carpentry — shades of pink and yellow, and red napkins are preserved in the notes of Who Can It Be Now by Men At Work, then Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. Both never fail to bring a bright smile to my face.

I’m in an old car, listening intently to the tinny sound of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car coming through the speaker of his shitty phone. Dad explains the lyrics to me, somber and too wise. Love will be the ruin of all of us, He told me, eyes dark, Always put yourself first.

As I grew older and my life changed, suddenly the Stereophonics were a frequent visitor in my Dad’s CD player. So mournful were the songs, the lyrics so damaging, that I couldn't listen to the opening notes of Beerbottle without feeling the urge to cry.

After years of vicious combat, my Dad was finally kicked out by my exhausted Mum. I didn’t see him for a year, which wasn't as hard as it should have been. In hindsight, it was probably because he wasn’t ever really there away.

A year and two months later, when he finally got his act together enough to come see me, the Stereophonics were still all he listened to.

Hurry Up And Wait blared over his stereo as he struggled not to get angry at me as I tried my best to cook spaghetti bolognese.

Lying In The Sun crooned as we kicked a ball around the neighbourhood park, my laughter uncontrollable as he insisted that he was winning despite the fact the goal I had just kicked was my seventh.

Innocent blasted as he gulped down his sixth bottle of beer, glaring at the television screen, his feet propped up on the coffee table.

Riding to school early one morning, You’re My Star came on, the opening notes already forming a lump in my throat. With a grave expression, my Dad announced that it was the song that reminded him the most about how he felt about me.

The lyrics were simple, tune light but unmemorable. The song as a whole wasn’t even the most mournful — if anything, it was happy, joyful. A declaration of love.

But my Dad — still the strongest person in my life, a pillar of unbreakable strength, even after a vindictive divorce at the tender age of thirty-seven — he sat in the front seat and began to bawl his eyes out.

Nearly instantaneously, my heart sank to my stomach and tears sprang to my eyes — in sympathy or horror I’m still unable to tell.

I had experience with parents crying now. A year with my depressed Mum taught me to bite my lip, and turn towards the window so he wouldn’t see my cry, so he could focus on his own pain rather than be distracted by mine.

If you have never experienced it, allow me to break down the soul crushing feeling every child gets when they witness their father cry.

First, your heart sinks to your stomach, like you’ve let them down in some way, as though your own insolence or carelessness has caused them the pain they write over their faces. Next, your own eyes water, first in confusion, then in empathy, then because your soul has been torn to shreds. When nausea begins to choke you, the palms of your hands will begin to sweat. Your throat closes up and you are overcome with so much emotion that nothing else means anything at all. Years later, you will remember exactly where you are. You will never be able to forget anything about it.

My childish belief that there wasn’t anything that my Dad couldn’t make better with a song, a joke or a kick-about was shattered into millions of pieces right before my eyes.

How could a man, whose shoulders were surely built for holding up the world, crumble and break apart over a song? How could he ever be expected to take any of my fears or insecurities when he clearly couldn’t take any of his?

I had just begun to unlearn how to keep everything to myself around him, a habit I had to master around my Mum — who was so fragile a strong gust could blow her away even though she tried to juggle three children and a full-time work life as well as the heartbreak of being alone.

Now I had to restrain myself once more.

No more confessing about how I sobbed into my pillow when I missed him too much. No more talking about how Mum had a tendency to spill too much information about how sad she was. No more trusting him to take on just a little weight of what I had shouldered.

I had to take care of my Mum. Circumstance had forced that on me, and I had learnt how not to feel too resentful about that. Now, I couldn’t let my dad take care of me.

Steadily, things got worse. Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nail's Hurt accompanied the day I left my Dad's house, leaving my younger sister and brother alone with him every Thursday-Friday-Saturday.

Because of our close proximity, my maturity and her inability to lean on someone else, I became a friend to my Mum. Although I was grateful for all the support she could afford to give me, I was overcome by mourning.

I lost both of my parents in the space of six months.

For the first time in my life, I was able to build my own soundtrack. Bring Me The Horizon's Drown and Pierce The Veil's Hold On Till May are all I need to remember.

Eventually, my Dad allowed himself to move on.

He found himself a lovely woman who loved us all as much as she could, and he learnt how to smile unwaveringly again. The Stereophonics stopped being such a staple in his life, fading into the background in favour of the Beatles and Elton John once more.

I never went back to live with my Dad, though over the years our relationship did manage to repair the most damaged parts of itself. We still cheer when our rugby team scores, but these days the backing track is the roar of the crowd around us.

But whenever I make the mistake to turn on a Stereophonics album, I become eleven again. To this day, I cannot listen to more than the opening notes of You’re My Star.

To this day, I cannot look my father in the eye.