Dad Rock: A Nod to Nostalgia
Dad rock isn’t just rock; it’s your dad sitting you down and lecturing you about “when music was good.” The genre is a nod to all the old, laid back music dads . They loved it thirty plus years ago and they still love it to this day. “Its really good music, man!” Dad rock now is pretty soft and sober, but back in its days, it partied way too hard.
Here’s a list of of a few dad-ish songs:
Jimmy Buffett: Cheeseburger in Paradise
The song was released on the 1978 album Son of a Son of a Sailor and is about a man ditching his unhealthy food habits. “Tried to amend my carnivorous habits” is a song lyrics, pertaining to wanting to eat health food but still dreaming of hamburgers.
Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone
This one is for those angsty dads out there that has been burned by another. This is one of Dylan’s most popular songs that transitioned him from a folk singer to rock star. Its about a young women who didn’t help the narrator in their time of need. Now that she has fallen from grace, she is left to fend for herself in a world filled with people trying to exploit her.
“How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone”
When Neil Young was still a young rich hippie, he bought himself a ranch. One of his neighbors, Louis, asked him how he could afford a ranch at such a young age. Young called it luck and wrote a song about how they were so different.”Old man look at my life, twenty four and there’s so much more. Live alone in a paradise that makes me think of two. Love lost, such a cost, give me things that don’t get lost. Like a coin that won’t get tossed, rolling home to you.”
Billy Joel sings of a working class man pursuing a beautiful wealthy girl.
“I’m gonna try for an uptown girl
She’s been living in her white bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now she’s looking for a downtown man
That’s what I am”
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell : Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
This song was a huge chart topper in the 70s. Its about a two people in love, saying nothing could stop each other from being together.
’Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe’
Buffalo Springfield: For What It Is Worth
This is soft rock with a socially conscious pulse. The song depicts a protest lead by young adults and kids that is trifled by police marching in with guns: “a man with a gun over there” and “young people speaking their minds/Getting so much resistance from behind”
Stevie Nicks — Sometimes It’s A Bitch
Who doesn’t love Stevie Nicks. She is one of the most well know women rock stars. Nicks said “…It was not a love song, which of course, I had expected it to be; it was much more than that to me... He dreamed about what the notorious Stevie Nicks had been like and what it had all done to her… the indulgences, the lifestyle. I felt that if he knew nothing else about me, he knew I had a strong instinct to survive…”
“Sometimes it’s a bitch, sometimes it’s a breeze
Sometimes love’s blind, and sometimes it sees
Sometimes it’s roses, and, sometimes it’s weeds
Sometimes it’s a bitch, sometimes it’s a breeze”
Whats more American than pie. This dad loves the good ol’ days and isn’t afraid to show it!
“Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
The Police’s Roxanne is about a man who falls in love with a lady of the night. Its a mix of reggae-rock that you can’t help but sing along to.
“Roxanne you don’t have to put on the red light
Those days are over you don’t have to sell your body to the night
Roxanne you don’t have to wear that dress tonight
Walk the streets for money you don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right”
The songs about a wondering traveler, and its the good kind of weird. The music nourishes the little punk outcast that lies deep within all of us.
“I am a passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright”
