I wrote this for a friend’s zine when my older daughter, now eight, was a few months old. Father’s day seems like as good a time as any to repost it.
My daughter Casey was born in January, and so far the singing-to-the-kid duties have mostly fallen on me. If I’d thought about it before she was born, I guess I’d have imagined that I’d have sung mostly kids’ songs — some Woody Guthrie, some of the lullabies that my folks sang to me — but it hasn’t worked out that way just yet.
I’m not quite sure how, but William Blake’s “Jerusalem” has wound up in heavy rotation, along with a slowed-down version of “Surfin’ Bird” that really seems to soothe her. If she’s pitching a fit, I usually sing whatever happens to pop into my head, or hum nonsense until it resolves itself into a recognizable melody (that’s how we ended up with the Blake, I think). Usually I don’t worry too much about the lyrics, even if they’re creepy or age-inappropriate — I can’t shelter her from “Psycho Killer” or “Cheap is How I Feel” forever. Not in this house.
There’s one song, though, that I’ve always felt strange singing to her, and it’s one of my (and, as much as one can tell these things, her) favorites — Buddy Holly’s “Well … All Right.”
I’ve loved that song for as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, the diffidence of a love song with such a title tickled me, and a few years ago I realized that it’s got a dark undercurrent to it that’s really powerful. In Buddy’s rendition, it’s one overwhelmed kid singing to another, but if you imagine someone like Johnny Cash singing it — and singing it now, doing with it what he did with Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” it becomes something weird and slightly sinister.
Well, all right — so I’m being foolish. It’s all right, let people know
About the dreams and wishes you wish, in the night when lights are low.
That’s nasty. It’s great, but it’s nasty. Hence my dilemma. And there are only twelve lines in the whole song — six, if you space them the way I did above — so I can’t do what every cowardly cover artist has ever done, and just skip the bits that make me uncomfortable.
About a month ago, though, something hit me. If you switch a few words around — just convert some ‘I’s and ‘we’s to ‘you’s and ‘your’s and make one or two plurals singular — the whole song changes. The singer steps out of the relationship, and suddenly he’s advising someone about an affair he’s not involved with. He’s an older-and-wiser friend. He’s a trusted counselor. He could even be … a father.
This is where my friend the shrink starts rolling her eyes and smiling indulgently when I tell her the story. The father-daughter relationship is intrinsically a romantic one, in her eyes, one whose great drama comes when the daughter hits puberty and throws dad over for some pimply dork — or worse, a dashing young prince or princess. But Casey’s not even crawling — I don’t have to deal with all that just yet.
What I do want to get started dealing with, though, even now, is sending her the message that she can and should be brave, and fearless, and take risks.
That although folks — maybe even me — are going to tell her she’s wrong and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and though sometimes we’ll be right, and sometimes it’ll hurt like hell, she should be bold anyway, and love anyway, and believe anyway, and hurt anyway. In the long run it’ll be okay. It’ll be all right.
Well, all right — so you’re going steady. It’s all right, let people say
That that foolish kid can’t be ready for the love that comes her way.
Well, all right. Well, all right. You can live and love with all your might.
Well, all right. Well, all right. Your lifetime love will be all right.
Well, all right — so I’m being foolish. It’s all right, let people know
About the dreams and wishes you wish, in the night when lights are low.
Well, all right. Well, all right. You can live and love with all your might.
Well, all right. Well, all right. Your lifetime love will be all right.
Sweet dreams, Casey.
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