Nostalgic tune, memories of my father, who I didn't know well enough. He is gone, died too young--and when I was far too young--but he is ever present in my life.
Melodic music for the heart and mind...
I jis' kinda play 'round, ya know? Hope y'all likezit!
Story behind the song
It took many years for the depth of the loss I felt from the death of my father would be clear to me. I cried when I wrote it, my wife cried when I played it. Sometimes after a little too much wine and I play it on the piano, I still tear up....
Lyrics
My Father’s Hat
By Dave stahl
In a garage that’s seldom clean, under old stacks of magazines
And rusting exercise machines I never use.
Dusty pages from the past bundled up with photographs,
Painful memories sealed up fast I’ll never lose.
Why did he have to go away?
I’m left behind, so much I didn’t say.
I’m lookin’ at my father’s hat hangin’ on the wall
The man whose head it rested on
I hardly knew at all, oh, I hardly knew at all
He loved the wind-blown cypress trees, the soaring hawk, the ocean breeze,
The colored swirl of autumn leaves, now memories in the wind,
The willows wept, the song birds cried on the day my father died,
I felt such emptiness inside in the end.
I should have read between the lines,
I might have seen the man a few more times.
I’m lookin’ at my father’s hat hangin’ on the wall
The man whose head it rested on
I hardly knew at all, oh, I hardly knew at all
It was a windy, crystal day, as clear as glass to Monterey,
The plane flew high above the bay of deep rich blue,
There were no right words left to say, he’d have said “laugh, boys, please don’t pray. ‘
When his ashes flew away his spirit flew.
Why did he take his life away?
Unlike the rain, he won’t come back some day.
I’m lookin’ at my father’s hat hangin’ on the wall
The man whose head it rested on
I hardly knew at all, oh, I hardly knew at all
Sometimes I put my father’s hat on my thinning hair.
And when that old tweed cap is on,
I feel him sitting there, oh, he’s sitting there I swear.
