| 1. TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM – PHIL SPECTOR |
| Perhaps the finest tribute to a father ever, To Know im Is To Love Him launched the career of a wayward genius. Phil Spector’s Russian Jewish family were thrown into turmoil when his father Benjamin committed suicide in 1949 when faced with rising debts. The Bronx-based family moved to Los Angeles but eight years later on a trip back to New York the producer visited his father’s grave and read the touching epitaph on the tombstone. When he returned home he turned the words into a song and handed it to The Teddy Bears in 1958. Originally a Bside, it was flipped by an enterprising DJ and went on to sell a million copies that year alone. |
| 2. PAPA WAS A ROLLIN’ STONE – THE TEMPTATIONS |
| The Temptations’ 1973 epic is rightly regarded as a soul classic but its singer, Denis Edwards, hated it. His father, a preacher, died on the third of September, the same day as the song’s no-good parent who went preaching. Edwards refused to believe the date was a coincidence although the song was originally handed to The Undisputed Truth. Whitfield played on the fact when it came to recording, provoking the bad tempered growl with which Edwards delivers the song. |
| 3. FATHER AND SON – CAT STEVENS |
| Probably (and regretfully) better known now through the 1995 Boyzone cover version, Cat Stevens’ 1970 song brilliantly captures the universal tension between a man and his son. It takes the form of a dialogue between the youth and his father, revealing the tensions between them and the former’s desire to flee the nest and live his own life. Stevens, now a Muslim renamed Yusuf Islam, has since explained it was originally framed as a story about a young Russian wanting to fight in the revolution and his father wanting him to remain behind on the family farm. He has also said he cannot hear the song without crying because of the loss of his Greek Cypriot father Demetre Georgiou. |
| 4. I NEVER WENT TO CHURCH – THE STREETS |
| Delivered in a gospel/Beatles style Mike Skinner’s tribute to his deceased father is one of the most poignant songs about the loss of a parent in recent years because of the personal detail revealed in lyrics like “You tidied your things into the bin the more poorly you grew/So there was nothing of yours to hold or to talk to” and in his candid inability to use faith as a means of support. Skinner endured a breakdown in the wake of his father’s death and the runaway success of his previous two albums. |
| 5. YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS – THE FLAMING LIPS |
| Despite a storyline apparently ripped straight from a colourful Japanese comic book, this absurdly cute song conceals a much darker side. The “evil little machines” that assail Yoshimi in the lyrics by frontman Wayne Coyne were an analogy for the invasive cancer cells attacking his father’s body. Sadly Coyne Snr had lost the battle by the time the song became a posthumous hit. Ironically, The Flaming Lips were forced to turnover half the royalties to another song, Fight Test, because of its resemblance to Cat Stevens’ Father And Son. |
| 6. A BOY NAMED SUE – JOHNNY CASH |
| Any child lumbered with a dodgy name can empathise with this Johnny Cash novelty staple. A boy grows up resentful not only at his father leaving him but also at the girl’s name he’s been saddled with, sees him in a bar and trades blows only for his father to explain he did it to toughen him up in his absence. The song was written by Shel Silverstein who went on to write a jokey sequel, The Father Of A Boy Named Sue, told from the dad’s perspective. The original was recorded live at St Quentin jail in 1969 although Cash had never ever played the song before. Years later when he performed it he would bring out his own son John Carter and introduce him to the audience. |
| 7. PAPA DON’T PREACH – MADONNA |
| Though written by Brian Elliott, Madonna’s 1986 Number One about a pregnant teenage girl coping with a disapproving patriarch serves as a reflection of the stormy relationship the singer enjoyed with her own deeply Catholic father, Sylvio Ciccone who was notoriously strict with her when she was growing up. Actor Danny Aiello, who played Madonna's father in the video, went on to record an answer song from the father’s perspective called Papa Only Wants The Best. Madonna’s ambivalence at her upbringing surfaced again in the 1989 single Oh Father which depicted an abusive relationship. Moral – fathers don’t try and control your daughters. |
| 8. SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN – U2 |
| Bono’s Dublin-born father Bob Hewson died in 2001 and Bono unveiled this song for the first time at his funeral. The song became one of the defining tracks on How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, went to Number One and won him a Grammy. It reflects their sometimes difficult relationship and his working-class father’s love of opera to which Bono attributed his own ability to sing. When Pavarotti discovered Bono’s father was an opera fan he bombarded Hewson with calls asking his son to write a song for him. He was delighted when Bono duly recorded Miss Sarajevo with the mighty tenor. |
| 9. BANK ROBBER – THE CLASH |
| Released in their reggae crossover peak with producer Mikey Dread at the controls, this serenade to a nefarious father provoked a storm of protest on its release because it was seen as a celebration of criminality. Co-songwriter Joe Strummer was all but estranged from his own father, Ronald Mellor, a junior ranking foreign diplomat, only re-establishing contact towards the end of the band’s life. |
| 10. FATHER TO SON – QUEEN |
| Taken from the high pomp of Queen II, this Brian May song providesunexpected insight into the cyclical nature of parenthood complete with trademark guitar thunder: “Take this letter that I give you/Take it sonny hold it high/You won’t understand a word that's in it/But you’ll write it all again before you die.”May’s father Harold famously helped design his son’s legendary guitar the Red Special, which they then built using the wood from a Nineteenth Century fireplace. |
