Dad Song Quotes & Sayings

My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible. — Emilia Clarke

I remember reading a book that was on songwriting at some point that I found in my dad's store, and just ... I did not relate at all. I've always hated structure of all kinds, it just doesn't work for me. I can never fit into the schedules of other people. It's like putting a schedule on your song, and it doesn't allow you to be moved by your own music. — Larkin Grimm

I just feel like it's easier to co-write sometimes, especially if you have chemistry with somebody. It kind of takes all the pressure off of you. But, you know, I started writing songs by myself. I didn't really have a co-writer, besides my dad. When I see a record and it has a song on it that someone wrote [alone], I just really believe in them as a writer. I feel like it's a window into them, more than it is if you write a song with someone else. — Miranda Lambert

I hope it really comes off. It would make my dad really proud. (about the song for the coming 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece) — George Michael

Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs. — Pam Brown

... that same hardware and tackle shop his dad got lost in for hours while Kache waited in the truck, writing lyrics on the backs of old envelopes his mom kept in the glove compartment for blotting her lipstick. Kache had written around the red blooms of her lip prints. — Sere Prince Halverson

Not being a natural songwriter ... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein. — Bonnie Raitt

Lydia's years of bed-time singing to Gordon weren't wasted. Nor was her tender nurturing to Dorothy. Nor were my dad's patient night-time responses to my yells, when I was small. Such love in action isn't wasted. Hearing Lydia giving herself in song to her boy, I learned that being patient is something you decide to practice. It's something you choose to do, even when- particularly when- you don't feel like it — Ruth Chipperfield

I love you beyond paint, beyond melodies, beyond words. And I hope you will always feel that, even when I'm not around to tell you so. — Kiera Cass

It's just weird that for some people, art is a luxury. My parents had no artistic outlet. Some people pass down music to their kids, but I couldn't tell you what my mom's or dad's favorite song is. So when I started going out into the world, I was drawn to people who knew about movies, art, even fashion. — Channing Tatum

We actually have some gay people that work with us, and we have a lot of friends that are gay, too, and I know that this song has inspired them ... I know that coming out was tough on their parents and on them and the whole entire family. For a long time, some of them didn't get to hear 'I love you' from their dads or be accepted in that way ... It's helped a lot of our friends ... We don't judge anybody's lives. — Martha Stewart

Well, I'm sorry you couldn't make it either. I'm sorry I had to sit there in that church--which, by the way, had a broken air conditioner--sweating, watching all those people march down the aisle to look in my mother's casket and whisper to themselves all this mess about how much she looked like herself, even though she didn't. I'm sorry you weren't there to hear the lame choir drag out, song after song. I'm sorry you weren't there to see my dad try his best to be upbeat, cracking bad jokes in his speech, choking on his words. I'm sorry you weren't there to watch me totally lose it and explode into tears. I'm sorry you weren't there for me, but it doesn't matter, because even if you were, you wouldn't be able to feel what I feel. Nobody can. Even the preacher said so. — Jason Reynolds

Even when I write a song, lots of times I think - I wonder what my dad would think of this song. — SonReal

I was in my dad's church, his Baptist church, and I think the first song I ever performed was 'Jesus Be a Fence Around Me.' — Aretha Franklin

I always used to love singing. The first song I knew all the words to was 'Girl of My Best Friend' by Elvis. My dad introduced me to his music, and when I got given a karaoke machine by my granddad, my cousin and I recorded a load of Elvis tracks. I wish I still had them so I could have a listen. — One Direction

Growing up, road trips with Dad were something I hated. Sitting still for hours, singing that stupid song, 100 bottles of beer on the wall. 100 bottles of beer ... Dad, you know, keeping up with the song. — Christopher Titus

I don't care if your dad is the Sultan of Brunei. You happened to be born into a privileged family. What you do with that truth is completely up to you. I'm here because I want to be with you. But if I didn't, all the money in the world wouldn't have changed my feelings for you. — Nicholas Sparks

Lennon's was one of the first voices I emulated when I began to sing. When we held tryouts in my pal's dad's living room for the singer in our band, I sang a Beatles song that Lennon sang. There is something about the timbre of his voice, something that it conveys, that still gets to me. The quality and the poetry of his lyrics. The wry sense of humor. And the boyishness, in the beginning. There are a great many things that touch me about him ... Lennon was, to put it in his own words, a 'working-class hero.' — Don Henley

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad's voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of "Yellow Submarine," which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d'etre, which is a French expression that I know. — Jonathan Safran Foer

My dad is adorably optimistic, positive, pie-in-the-sky. He thinks every new song I write is my best. He sells T-shirts at my merchandise stands and hands out guitar picks to fans. — Taylor Swift

My father's a musician and my mother's a singer. My dad's originally from Brooklyn and he was a Latin percussionist so I've always had instruments around the house. He used to have a show like a 1950s rock and roll show with Little Richard music. They would do doo-wop songs and stuff like that. — Bruno Mars

My dad dying was actually a reason for me to stop music properly for about a year, because he was a big supporter. All I wanted to do was write a song about him and, you know, when something's too fresh, you can't quite word it. — Gin Wigmore

My dad noticed some kind of talent on piano when he asked me to play a couple random songs on piano when I was 6 and I just did it. I attempted lessons but I was just so bad at reading notes. I would read "Three Blind Mice" by ear, so learning notes was almost impossible. — Christina Grimmie

We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, You know what? I know my dad's songs ... — Arlo Guthrie

I came home one day from school after being chased by kids singing "Yellow Submarine", and I didn't understand why. It just seemed surreal: why are they singing that song to me? I came home and I freaked out on my dad: 'Why didn't you tell me you were in The Beatles?' And he said, 'Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.' — Dhani Harrison

I mean, my wife is always like - I don't write lyrics. So I couldn't, like, really technically write a song for anyone. I could write a very nice instrumental. So she always sort of gives me a hard time because it's just such a ridiculously impossible standard to live up to, that your step-dad wrote that song for your mom. — Mark Ronson

Dad, once an aspiring architect, drove his own catering truck to feed factory workers in downtown Los Angeles, and mom, with a Mensa IQ and mathematical gifts, served as a bookkeeper and worked in a grocery store while pursuing her calling in music: playing piano and composing songs. Perhaps in a way, part of my drive was to complete their unfulfilled ambitions and dreams, but in my own way. — Dan Millman

My dad, who plays guitar and piano and was in cover bands, along with my older brother, Matt, taught me guitar and stuff. I started writing acoustic songs and playing by myself in 7th grade. — Conor Oberst

Some people feel that it's controversial if I say that because my dad is known as a political artist. But I don't really believe that he was a political artist. I think some of his songs were political, and I think they were incredible because he was able to make art that was political and that wasn't pedantic. But I think he was unique in being able to do that. — Sean Lennon

Our shows have always been sort of an all-generations thing, people from 6 to 60. The other night, we played a show and we had a woman who was probably 70 to 75 years old, and she was there alone and she was singing every song. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a 7-year-old on his dad's shoulders and the dad is singing along. — Andy Biersack

I performed at Mom and Dad's party when I was four. Oh my gosh, I was singing a Madonna song, and I peed myself! — Britney Spears

My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home. — Levon Helm

The song is "Always Wanting You," a favorite of Dad's, where cynical, heartsick Merle croon about always wanting but never having his love, and about how hard it will be to face tomorrow cuz he knows he'll just be wanting her again. Doomed. — Rachel Cohn

I always liked performing in front of my parents' friends. My dad bought me a karaoke machine, and I would put on a Michael Jackson song like 'Thriller,' and I would come out with, like, a hat and a jacket, and, like, moonwalk in my socks, so I was always performing. — Nolan Sotillo

I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad. — Ricky Skaggs

My father was a singer. So it just kind of happened that one Sunday while my dad was singing, I just walked out and stood next to him, and I started singing the song that he was leading, and I sang it in perfect pitch. — Marvin Sapp

I think if you sing a song for the first time to your mom and dad, or your friends, and they go, 'That's pretty cool'-if you're playing at the local bar somewhere, or the coffee shop, singing songs, or if you have a gig somewhere and you're singing your own songs, I think that's some version of making it ... It's not just about having commercial success; it's about having a great life. — Dierks Bentley

The moment I fell, my wings wilted like roses left too long in the vase. The misery of the bare back is to live after flight, to be the low that will never again rise. "To live on land is to live in a dimming station, but to fly above, everything sparkles, everything is endlessly crystal. Even the dry dirt improves to jewel when you can be the wings over it. "To be removed from flight is to be removed from the comet lines, the star-soaked song. How can I go on from that? How can I be something of value when I've lost my most valuable me? Land is my forever now, my thoroughly ended heaven. No sky will have me, no God either. "I am the warning to all little children before bedtime. Say your prayers, be done with sin, lest you become the devil, the one too sunk, no save will have him." Dad — Tiffany McDaniel

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ... ' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ... — David Mitchell

Somewhere outside, a goldfinch was singing. Or maybe it was a song sparrow. My dad tried to teach me different kinds of bird songs, but I couldn't quite remember. — Jenny Han

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home. — Sarah Dessen

When I was 18 years old, I went on the road with my dad after I graduated from high school. And we were riding on the tour bus one day, kind of rolling through the South, and he mentioned a song. We started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don't know that one. And he mentioned another. I said I don't know that one either, Dad, and he became very alarmed that I didn't know what he considered my own musical genealogy. — Rosanne Cash

Hey, Dad, check this out!" Ike stared at the boy. He clearly wanted to be down there watching his kid possibly crack his skull open, rather than recording a song about how frightened he was that his kids might crack their skulls open. — Steve Almond

So yeah, when I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I'd come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand's records. And she was very young then. I think she probably had three records out, and she was 21, and we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it. — Meryl Streep

That night, stargazing on the deck with Dad, eyes on the sky, he pointed out Orion, Betelgeuse. "It's an art to read the stars, baby."
I never wanted to leave his side-my sure song for so long. Now? His eyes are stone changed. Just looking at them hurts my heart. — Norma Fox Mazer

My dad loves to cook. I'm half Thai, and growing up, that's all we ate in my house. My dad was very big on the idea that dinnertime and cooking time was also family time. — Brenda Song

I have loved music so much from when I was little, and I don't know whether it was because I saw my dad doing it and then I got the idea; I don't know what came first ... But I always had a hairbrush in the mirror singing. I was always with him backstage; I would go out and be pulled in for the last song. — Lisa Marie Presley

I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called 'Rock Star,' which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, 'Why not play the drums?' — Amandla Stenberg

My dad [Johnny Cash] went to the [Richard] Nixon White House and refused to sing "Welfare Cadillac" (instead performing the anti-war songs "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and "Man in Black"). He protested the Vietnam War, but he went to perform for the troops with bombs dropping all around him. He had that kind of genius: a true artist's capacity for holding two opposing thoughts at once while being large enough to encompass all realities. — Rosanne Cash

I lost my brother in a car wreck when I was 14 years old. When I decided I wanted to be a country singer, my dad always told me, 'Son, you should write a song about your brother.' — Blake Shelton

My dad wrote a song about the people in the slides. I started playing harmonica. I was only six. — Rachel Trachtenburg

Taylor was named after James Taylor and claims that she knows all the James Taylor songs, and I'm a huge fan of James Taylor and know all his songs, too. My dad told me that if I ever met Taylor Swift, I had to tell her that I know every James Taylor song. We started naming albums, and we were both shouting them out. — Charlie Puth

Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us. — Anne Tyler

One day, I went to buy something for my dad at the shops, and I heard a song by Nat King Cole called 'Stardust Melody.' It was like I went into a trance or something. I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to him what happened. I thought I was going to get a whipping, but he understood. — Desmond Dekker

As far as Rap goes Tupac was my favorite, I used to sing some of his songs in my set before I ever met his dad. — Michael Tolcher

It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people. — Stevie Nicks

When I was a teenager, my dad used to call me 'Hollywood' because I wore sunglasses all the time, even at night. Cue song. — Michael Weatherly

Dad wouldn't let me fool with his guitar much, because I'm left-handed, and I'd pick it up upside down. But I remember learning to sing 'Paper Doll,' the Mills Brothers song - this was during the war - and I remember my dad taking me down to one of those little record booths where you could make spoken letters to send home. — Don Everly

is Whitney? Is that your dealer?" "Whitney Houston," Mom said. "You know, dear. She was that singer who sang that song you like that Helena performed." "'Hit Me Baby, One More Time?" "That's Britney, dear." "'Dirty?" "That was Christina." "Umbrella?" "And that was Rihanna. Larry, you're embarrassing yourself. You have a gay son, for God's sake. How can you not know your divas?" Mom sounded affronted. "Paul? Paul! If you can hear me, don't listen to your father! He obviously doesn't know his ass from his elbow!" "Language," Dad scolded. "And I know my divas. I know them very well. What about that Woman Goo-Goo that Helena performs like? — T.J. Klune

When I was a kid my Dad never let me sing Patsy Cline songs for one simple reason: they've already been done. — Tanya Tucker