I have a confession to make. Over the last few weeks I have been staying up late into the night well after my wife has gone to bed; I have been sitting alone in my car well after my son has exited with his baseball gear; I have been cleaning out the dishwasher very slowly while wearing my headphones. Why? So I can absorb every sonic and lyrical nuance of not one but TWO albums released in late September by two esteemed “sad dad” bands: The National’s Laugh Track, released on September 18, and Wilco’s Cousin, released on September 28.
As I have been listening to these albums I have wondered … Why did the powerbrokers of sad dad rock – Matt Berninger and Jeff Tweedy – allow an avalanche of minor chords and introspective first-person lyrics to crash upon their loyal fans over the course of just a few days? Like me, Berninger and Tweedy both have families, wear thick-framed glasses, sport 7-day old beards and I presume subscribe to The New Yorker. From their respective perches as Brooklyn-based lead singer of The National (Berninger) and Chicago-loving front-man of Wilco (Tweedy), they have built a loyal fan base of dads, plus a few wives, who are staring down the mundanity of mid-life. They understand us and we deeply appreciate them. It’s a healthy codependency. So how could their bands both drop albums at essentially the same time? And in September no less?
For the demands on a dad’s time are at their peak in September – back to school nights, fall sports leagues, PTA meetings (when dad has to make dinner), and all the sad dads wanting to put on sweaters and hoodies and go to beer farms on Saturdays. These demands make it challenging for a dad to find the time to listen to not one but two albums from essential bands.
Before proceeding, I should take a minute to establish my sad dad rock fan “bona fides.” I first saw Wilco live in 1999. I bought my first The National CD in 2007. My son, when he was four years old, tried to play one of my records while I was at work and broke the tone arm; this was in 2012. Not long after, that same son, with the help of his sister, broke the five-disc changer I had owned since college while trying to play a CD. A few months later he broke the cheaply manufactured one that I had purchased to replace it. In 2014, my wife declared that I owned too many CDs and demanded that I trade some in; like a good husband I did so. I sometimes secretly go to record stores when my wife thinks I am at the grocery store (buying records to replace the CDs I traded in). I have tried to teach myself to play guitar, with only limited success. I sometimes go to music shows alone.
I am not a poseur. Or a poser. I was a sad dad music fan before sad dad bands became a footnote in American music culture.
Now, back to The National and Wilco dropping albums within a ten-day period. I know that this was probably just a coincidence. Especially since Laugh Track was a “surprise” album. But for dads like me, who are coaching little league (well, assistant coach), running a high school arts booster organization (treasurer, not president) and doing all the household chores my wife asks me to do on the days I work from home (well, most of the chores), that’s a lot of music to consume in one swallow. Could not Jeff Tweedy have called Matt Berninger in early September and talked through the implications of releasing the albums so close together? It would have been an easy conversation, I am sure, something like:
Jeff (slightly raspy but cheery): Hey, Matt. How’s life?
Matt (morose baritone): It’s fine, I guess.
Jeff: Yeah, I hear ya. But it’s cool that we’re both still kickin’ out the jams, right?
Matt: Sure, if that’s what you want to call what we do.
Jeff: Listen. Wilco has an album that’s about to come out and we hear that The National is about to drop a surprise album that no one’s expecting. Should we maybe spread them out a bit? You know, so our fans have plenty of time to listen to each of them separately.
Matt: How do you know about the album we haven’t told anyone about?
Jeff: Ha! Yeah, um, Matt … look – let’s stay focused on the issue at hand. Our dad fans have a lot going on right now with back-to-school nights and their honey-bears at PTA meetings and baseball and soccer games to coach. Finding time to listen to a Wilco album AND a National album in a short time frame could be difficult.
Matt: Aren’t most of our dad fans assistant coaches? At best?
Jeff: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. But even being an assistant coach, you know, takes time.
Matt: Jeff, listen, thanks for the call. I’m going to take a nap now. I’ll ruminate on what I think you are suggesting when I wake up. The guys might want to run it by Taylor. We’ll see. Ciao.
Ok, so maybe a phone call between Jeff and Matt would not have worked out so well.
The vortex of sad dad rock in which I have been swimming lately has converted my initial WHY to a WHAT – what is the essence of a sad dad song? The term “sad dad music” has been bandied about on the interwebs and socials and college-friend text threads for the last year or so. There’s even merch and the term is now fully embraced by The National. (Sad dad shirts were aplenty in the audience at The National’s Homecoming music festival in Cincinnati in mid-September.) But I do not believe that anyone has ever undertaken an effort to devise an analytical framework for identifying a sad dad song. We are stuck with a general eye of the beholder/ear of the listener approach that is deployed everywhere from the New Yorker to Apple Music. This approach is no more sophisticated than, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s observation about pornography, “I know it when I [hear] it.”
So what exactly makes a song a sad dad song? After many years of listening to dad rock (of which sad dad rock is a subgenre), listening that I will take the liberty to call research, I have concluded that there are four essential elements to a sad dad song, two lyrical and two musical.
Element No. 1: I have a confession to make (but not to a priest)
Element No. 2: Minor chords are featured (or at least present)
Element No. 3: Things were better for me (or us) in the past
Element No. 4: Mid-tempo pace (suitable for playing when easing into or waking up from a nap)
In the coming months, I will apply these four elements to a variety of songs to determine whether a track qualifies as a sad dad song. Each element will have its own sad scale from 1-5, with 1 being “I’m almost smiling” to 5 being “crying in the Whole Foods parking lot.” The score will be tabulated and a minimum of 13 is required for a song to be a sad dad song.
Here’s an example of how it will work. Conversation 16 by The National is track nine on their album High Violet, released in 2010. While Boxer was the “break out” album for The National, High Violet was the album that cemented their status as a band capable of deftly exploring the simmering inner-strife of the domesticated (likely white and American) male, i.e., the sad dad. And Conversation 16 does so with aplomb.
(1) I have a confession to make. This song is dripping with confessions. Here are a few of the less ominous ones:
It’s a Hollywood summer/You’d never believe the shitty thoughts I think
Meet our friends out for dinner/When I said what I said, I didn’t mean anything
But then comes the kicker, in the chorus:
I was afraid, I’d eat your brains
I was afraid, I’d eat your brains
’Cause I’m evil
‘Cause I’m evil
The guy’s domestic life is so mundane and soul crushing that he confesses he might be a zombie on the verge of killing the mother of his children! Confession score: 5
(2) Minor chords? Indeed. The song starts out in B minor, moves to D then to E minor; the zombie chorus is in D then B minor and F minor. Plenty of minor (sad) chords. Chord score: 5
(3) Things were better for me/us in the past. This couple has seen better days:
I figured out what we’re missing/I tell you miserable things after you are asleep.
Based on that line alone, saying that things were once better in this relationship would be an understatement. Past was better score: 4
(4) Mid-tempo (nap time)?
This is the category where Conversation 16 presents a challenge. The song is 116 bpms, which is a moderate pace. For comparison, The National’s song Mistaken for Strangers – an unquestionable rocker on their album Boxer – is 133 bpms. The tempo on Conversation 16 is definitely mid, but this is one of many National tracks where drummer Bryan Devendorf works his signature rhythmic magic. Devendorf is adept at punctuating National songs with vigorous toms and a loose snare, bringing a muscular yet complementary counterpoint to Berninger’s brooding baritone. On Conversation 16 the zombie chorus is filled with this drumming style, which might wake-up a light sleeper. Conversely, the muted reverb guitar opening, which I believe is supported by some harmonium in the background, creates a trance-like sound that should support a nap most weekdays. I will confess, this one is a close call. I might need to sleep on it. Tempo score: 2.5
Overall Sad Dad Song Score for Conversation 16: 16.5
I have plenty of songs in mind, by many bands, that I would like to run through the sad dad song analysis. Some of you may be thinking of a song or two, perhaps even from a different musical era, and are wondering – is that a sad dad song? It’s time to find out.
Seeing that you’re profile pic features an REM album label, don’t you think they’re the forefathers or godfathers of this genre? (BTW all the bands on the IRS label- Buzzcocks, Wall of VooDoo, Cramps, The Fall, etc.- may have something to do with the early roots of this sub genre, but it definitely helped formulate my own sub-sub-SUB genre which is Escapist-former quasi punk/psych (mom) music.
I was laughing as I read this.
Anyway, let's subscribe to each other's newsletters if that's not a sad thing to do!