{"id":5072,"date":"2015-09-18T07:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2015-09-14T12:33:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T17:33:16","slug":"sorry-dad-father-daughter-relationships-through-the-ears-of-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/2015\/09\/18\/sorry-dad-father-daughter-relationships-through-the-ears-of-country-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry Dad: Father Daughter Relationships Through the Ears of Country Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Country music often contemplates the relationship of a daughter and her parents, even more often: a daughter and her father. This phenomenon most commonly pokes at the idea that daughters grow up too fast but will always remain \u201cdaddy\u2019s little girl.\u201d The tone of these songs typically ranges from sentimental to intimidating (when meant to show who\u2019s boss to the daughters new man<\/em>.) As a daughter who\u2019s extremely close to her dad, listening to such songs has made me laugh, made me want to go find an extremely bad boy<\/em> to bring home to dad and, on occasion, made me curl into a bawl and cry about the childhood days being over.<\/p>\n

Emotions run wild because of songs like Heartlands\u2019 \u201cI Loved Her First,\u201d Trace Adkins\u2019 \u201cYou\u2019re Gonna Miss This,\u201d Rodney Atkins\u2019 \u201cCleaning This Gun (Come on In Boy)\u201d, and a (probably way too) long list of others. Personally, I can not not<\/em> sob while listening to the gut wrenching \u201cMy Little Girl\u201d by Tim McGraw. This popular hit from the major motion picture, Flicka,<\/em> was an instant favorite of my dad\u2019s, as well as parents of daughters everywhere. I remember my grandma always referencing the dramatic \u201cGo on take on this whole world, But to me you know you\u2019ll always be, My little girl\u201d lyric to my dad and me being super confused on why that was so important and why that made him so sad about me<\/em>. It wasn\u2019t until my thirteenth birthday party when my mom forced me to get on stage with my dad to slow dance to this heartbreaking story of a dad losing his daughter to the real world that I realized I, too, would eventually leave my dad.<\/p>\n

This is how country music portrays the daddy\/daughter relationship: the daughter growing up and leaving with zero intentions of turning back. Where, most commonly, the growing up phase<\/em> covers the first five years where the daughter is still very much a little girl and then, suddenly, is instantly ready for marriage. This most definitely creates a depressed tone towards country music but also a very real one. This is one of country music\u2019s best assets: the ability to make people feel<\/em>. It\u2019s impossible to listen to Tim McGraw say \u201cWhen you were in trouble that crooked little smile could melt my heart of stone. Now look at you, I\u2019ve turned around and you\u2019ve almost grown,\u201d and not feel something, especially as a daughter or a father. The heartbreaking country ballads about being old because I no longer live at home with my dad and am no longer 4 years old will continue to haunt me and make me bawl, I\u2019m sure of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Country music often contemplates the relationship of a daughter and her parents, even more often: a daughter and her father. This phenomenon most commonly pokes at the idea that daughters grow up too fast but will always remain \u201cdaddy\u2019s little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,74,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post-1","category-country-symbols","category-movies-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5218,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions\/5218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}