Song Lyric Sunday

This week, for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday, we were to pick a song about “Dads and/or Grads.” There are a lot of great songs to choose from no matter which one you pick. I’m excited to see the tunes folks picked this week.

I’ve already written a couple graduation posts this week. Kindergarten graduation counts, right? Anyway, I opted to find a “dad” song.

The older I get, the more I realize just how much I am like my dad (and vice versa). I see a lot of me in my oldest sons, too. That being said, it is probably why I chose this particular song.

Paul Overstreet is one of country music’s great songwriters. He wrote plenty of hits for other singers. For Randy Travis he wrote Forever and Ever Amen, Digging Up Bones, and On The Other Hand. He wrote Keith Whitley’s When You Say Nothing At All, the Judds’ Love Can Build a Bridge, and Blake Shelton’s Some Beach just to name a few.

He began a singing career in 1982, but had his greatest solo success between 1989-1992. He released three albums during that time that did very well for him. The albums were Sowin’ Love, Heroes, and Love is Strong.

In January of 1990, Overstreet released Seeing My Father In Me as the fourth single from Sowin’ Love. It would reach number 2 on the country charts.

Seeing My Father In Me

Last night we brought the children by to visit their grandpa
And it’s plain to see they’re truly part of him
While we were there, their grandma took out some old photographs
Man, he sure looked a lot like me back then

I’m seein’ my father in me
I guess that’s how it’s meant to be
And I find I’m more and more like him each day
I notice I walk the way he walks
I notice I talk the way he talks
I’m starin’ to see my father in me

And today I took my wife for a walk down that old dirt road
Where my daddy took my mom so many times
And we found the time to mention things we never had before
And we shared some thoughts about the family life

Yeah, I’m seein’ my father in me
I guess that’s how it’s meant to be
And I find I’m more and more like him each day
I notice I walk the way he walks
I notice I talk the way he talks
I’m starin’ to see my father in me

And now looking back I can recall the times we disagreed
When I could not take hold of his old-fashioned ways
And the more I tried to prove him wrong, the more I proved him right
Now I know why he still stood by me when I went through that stage

I’m seein’ my father in me
I guess that’s how it’s meant to be
And I find I’m more and more like him each day
I notice I walk the way he walks
I notice I talk the way he talks
I’m starin’ to see my father in me

And I’m happy to see my father in me

Songfacts.com sheds a bit of light on Paul’s “fatherly” songs:

But the tightly bonded father-son relationship that manifests in his songs isn’t true to life. Overstreet had a distant relationship with his dad, who didn’t come home one day. It took him a while, but he came to terms with it and started writing songs about how he wanted his kids to feel about him. “I started writing things about what I wanted in life, and what I didn’t have as a kid,”

Songfacts goes on with details on the video for the song:

The black-and-white music video features a collection of real fathers with their kids. “A lot of them were in difficult relationships, they hadn’t been talking,” Overstreet explained. “So they came to do this video together, and it kind of healed their relationships as well as people who would see it and hear that song.”

To this day, anytime someone comes up to me and says, “You’re just like your dad,” I take that as one of the greatest compliments. He’s not perfect, but neither am I. I hope my children take the good parts of me and put them into practice. I hope they will look back and say, “My dad always had my best interests in mind. He loved me and I hope to be like him.”

Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s reading this, today.