It’s been a sad week – my Dad died last weekend and we had the funeral on Thursday. He’d been in a hospital bed for four years with dementia, unable to move, talk or anything, curled up and sleeping like a cat. My Mum and I did a lot of grieving over that time so when the end came, quickly and painlessly, it was a merciful relief.
At the funeral my oldest daughter and my son sang this song, which was a favourite of Dad’s. It’s a folk song that he learned in the late fifties/early sixties, he was fond of groups like The Weavers, The Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary. “Logger Lover” has a great lyric about a logger who was so tough and used to the cold that he “stirred his coffee with his thumb”. In his early stages of dementia, when my Dad had about 3 or 4 things to say that he just repeated endlessly, this was one, and whenever he had a cup of tea or coffee in front of him he’d mime a stirring action with his thumb.
I’ll post the lyrics in the comments
So, to cheer me up, what are/were some of your parent’s favourite songs?
Logger Lover aka The Frozen Logger
As I sat down one evening ’twas in a small cafe,
A forty year old waitress to me these words did say:
“I see you are a logger and not just a common bum
For nobody but a logger stirs coffee with his thumb.
My lover was a logger, there’s none like him today,
If you poured whiskey on it, he’d eat a bale of hay.
He never shaved his whiskers from off of his horny hide
He’d drive them in with a hammer and bite them off inside.
My lover came to see me, ’twas on a stormy day,
He held me in a fond embrace and broke three vertebrae.
He kissed me when we parted, so hard he broke my jaw
That I couldn’t speak to tell him he forgot his mackinaw.
I saw my logger lover go sauntering through the snow,
A-goin’ gaily homeward at forty-eight below.
The weather tried to freeze him, it tried its level best.
At a hundred degrees below zero, he buttoned up his vest.
It froze clear down to China, it froze to the stars above,
At a thousand degrees below zero, it froze my logger love.
They tried in vain to thaw him, and if you believe me, sir.
They cut him into to axe blades, to chop the Douglas fir.
And so I lost my lover, and to this cafe I’ve come
To sit and wait for someone who stirs coffee with his thumb.
Sorry to hear that.
Growing up (my Dad is 73 next year) I don’t remember a particular song. Springsteen, via BTR; Dire Straits, via Romeo and Juliet; Big Country, because they were from Dunfermline; Buddy Holly because Buddy Holly.
But what I do remember more are the concerts. Jethro Tull, and then Bryan Adams, at Brighton. The Stranglers in Guildford. Mike Sanchez. Geno Washington. Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, Mark Knopfler, Steve Harley, Tom Robinson, Faith Folk and Anarchy, Runrig (more than once), Springsteen, BC, Hugh Cornwell.
My Das was my gig buddy before I emigrated, and I miss that a lot.
For most of my childhood I thought my parents’ favourite songs were probably by Schubert or Brahms. It was only towards the end of my dad’s life that I discovered that they both loved Glenn Miller. A wartime thing, obviously, but then they suppressed it. Most odd. Here’s one of their faves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ImGP33hcc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7aWI2favI
So sorry to hear this, Mousey. Must have been a very tough four years for you all.
My Dad was a big Simon and Garfunkel fan, which was a rare example of good taste from him. I think I’ve mentioned before (similar to another Afterworder’s Dad) that he used to sing ‘I Left My Heart in San Fransisco’ with the words ‘I’ll Show My Arse in Burton’s Window’.
He also did a version of ’24 Hours from Tulsa’ but I can’t for the life of me remember the lyrics he substituted.
But mainly he liked Kenny Rodgers so this got played a lot:
https://youtu.be/MCjzhDrlTJ8
My Dad only really likes classical but he does like this
My mum died when I was 17 so in some ways I didn’t know her very well and 3 years on the memories are a bit hazy but when I was very small she had a Seekers album and I always remember this
33 years on, of course…….
Hi Mousey, so sorry to hear what you have been through -dementia has to be eradicated ultimately, a vile illness.
My dad isn’t particularly fond of music but what he does like stirs potent memories:-
His favourite piece of music is Greensleeves which would definitely be his funeral music.
On car journeys he would always have us singing Three wheels on my wagon. ‘Flaming spears burn my ears’ indeed. Also King of the road.
He also loved Frank Sinatras ‘Strangers in the night’ and I recall him dancing with my mum to this song, cheek to cheek, in a rare show of public affection.
Mum loves music – all the musicals you can think of.
My mum had no interest in music whatsoever, although she did like Carrie by Cliff Richard (but I think that’s cos she thought it was called Gary) and that Michael Ball fella. My Irish dad only ever listened to Elvis Presley, apart from this one recording praising the delights of the IRA:
So sorry to hear your news Mousey.
Death remains an utter bastard.
My Dad was a proper old Mod, mutating from the chrysalis as a LZ/Cream/CCR type of guy in the late 60’s, early 70’s.
He was only 22 when I was born in 1970, so my memories of the music being played in the house started when I was six I suppose.
I remember a lot of Cream. We had the greatest hits record with the salad bits on the front. Wings Over America, Tommy, Quadrophenia (Dad used to go down the Goldhawk and Oldfield tavern all the time in ’64), Bridge over Troubled Water, Tapestry etc. Last two possibly Mum’s….
He hated, hated Dylan and Donovan. Traffic and Humble Pie were tolerated due to the Mod-ish roots but never played.
Weirdly though, the song I most associate with my Dad (and I won’t post it here as there’s as yet undiscovered tribes deep in the Amazonian jungle primeval who would scream ‘Not this fucking song again’ when it hit Manaus version of Radio 2) is Bohemian Rhapsody.
Dad was very proud he had this 7″ with a picture sleeve. He must’ve played it twice a day every day for a couple of years. He stood over the Sanyo Music Centre watching it spin in silence. He never talked about it. Just watched it go round, nodding every now and then. It obviously touches him deeply but I have no idea why.
Weird huh?
My Dad loved Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Perry Como as well as Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins (he thought it hilarious that I thought El Paso was called “Rosie’s Back Door”)but his real love was an Aussie country singer named Chad Morgan.
Listen to this, if only to imagine me hearing it countless hundreds of times while I was growing up. It’s a slice of sheer, unadulterated Australiana.
The Sheik of Scrubby Creek – Chad Morgan
Sincere condolences for your loss, Mousey. I remember posting on one of the previous versions of this place when my father passed away four years ago, and was overwhelmed by the warmth and compassion of the responses. I shared the lovely memory of discovering, in his final weeks, that far from just being the country music fan I had always known him to be, my dad shared my love of ABBA and Frank Sinatra. Upon clearing out his house, we discovered that he loved one particular Frank song so much that he had copied down the lyrics. So, without apology, I’m delighted to post this once more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e1j3o_NPLA
My Dad, bless his cotton socks, had no interest whatsoever in music. (He was also the only man I have ever known with zero interest in sport, no knowledge at all of World Cups, Wimbledon, Open Golf etc).
Mum on the other hand loved music (now she has met Mr Alzheimer it’s loved not loves) – mostly Ella, Frank and the like but often as well “proper” jazz. Mum was also a sports fanatic: cricket first but football, golf, everything.
Guess which parent I took after?
Don’t give up on music for your mum. I regularly visit a nursing home for people with dementia and time appropriate music goes down extremely well.
My dad died in 1992. He loved Frank, Ella, soul music and Status Quo. He never liked David Bowie. We fought over the stereo. He bought Paul Simon LPs on the weekend of release, declared them ‘classics’ and played them repeatedly. I wanted to listen to Aladdin Sane or Pinups.
Paul Simon – Loves Me Like A Rock
Oh man. Sorry for your loss, Mousey. My own dad is in the early stages of dementia, he’s still up and about, but every few weeks a noticable change for the worse can be expected. I don’t need to tell you how hard it is to be around and to actually take care of the person you love so much and who did so much good. for you.
My dad never put much attention to music, although when he was young, he played acoustic guitar and piano accordeon. He taught me to play this old folk song from where he grew up that goes “Dere sem ja mali bija, te je lusno blo”, roughly translated from slovene to english “when I was young, those were good times”.
Anyway, I was listening to Horslips’ The man who built America album and as on cue while I was reading your post this sad, slow song came on. It’s good to cry, they say. Thank you.
My dad was a Mantovani devotee. Don’t remember if there was a particular song he liked best, but I do remember the cover to the ‘April in Portugal’ LP, so that’s probably not a bad choice. Years later, when I heard the Amalia Rodrigues version of ‘Coimbra’, I loved it immediately without making the connection to my father’s tastes – perhaps because the two versions couldn’t be more different if they wanted to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urwxri7nIes
My condolences Mousey, I’m lucky that both my parents are alive and both comes from families where people get very old and stay healthy until the end, bar a few slight ailments.
My dad will be 90 next year and he walks faster than me when we go out for a stroll (more like a semi-jog in his tempo). He was a professional musician for most of his life and still play for several hours every day on his old contra bass, having taped his bow to keep it together after accidentally sitting on it and breaking it. He has another one, but it doesn’t have the right feel apparently.
He mostly plays classical pieces, but also the popular songs of his youth.
And he enjoys listening to jazz and especially likes Grappelli’s violin playing.
My mum watches all of the concerts on TV, twice if they’re really good. Opera gives her the most joy I think. But she always says that she wants “Misa Criolla” to be played at her funeral.
I hope that’s a long way into the future.
Back in his younger days my dad was a jazz/blues afficianado (trad jazz and folk blues, mainly). I remember looking through his collection when I was a youngster and finding all these records with thick cardboard sleeves and hand pasted artwork. I later found out of course that these were Folkways records that he had sent off for from somewhere in that London.
This is the song he has requested he have played at his funeral:
As an ex-RAF man, he’s also partial to a bit of the old military marching band music. This is his favourite:
Sorry to hear your news Mousey, although it’s also a relief as you say, given the circumstances – a dreadful disease as others have said.
I’m in the fortunate position of having both parents still with us and largely healthy, approaching 80. They’ve just returned from a cruise on the Danube and I had to break the news of Val Doonican’s passing – one of Dad’s favourites. But this is the one he has mentioned he would like played at his funeral – Burl Ives singing The Old Rugged Cross, which he learned at the knee of Sister Anselm at his first school:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1ktahz7Ao
I also well remember how much he loved Marty Robins as mentioned above, along with such folk luminaries as Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Ralph McTell and many others.
Mum had less interest in music and has chosen this one :