here’s a song dedicated to someone who accounts for 50% of my DNA. to your 55th year and to 26ys4ms13ds of being the person i call my father. a toast to you "Fatherhood"!^^ — until i come up with the best tribute that is due and worthy of you…..words of wonder and gratitude escape me….<sigh>…may the message more than express what i’m itchingly dying to say…
Leader Of The Band
Artist: Dan Fogelberg
LP/CD: The Innocent Age
Writer: Dan Fogelberg
http://www.danfogelberg.com/lyricsinnocent.html
An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker’s son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn’t wait
He earned his love through discipline– a thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand
(Chorus)
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band
My brothers’ lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I’m in Colorado when I’m not in some hotel
Living out this life I’ve chose and have come to know so well
I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And, papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough
(Chorus)
I am a living legacy to the leader of the band
for reasons not apparent to me, i want to cry. y, oh y do this testi make me teary-eyed? perhaps i would like to make a toast to my own father too. my hart s breakng so.
jen, no need for those tears…i’m sure your tatay knows how thankful you are of him, too.