If you’re a dad in need of a good cry, consider this your warning: Luke Combs’ album Fathers & Sons hits hard. In this episode, the Country Music Dads give a full, unfiltered review of Combs’ seventh studio album. Honestly, it was inevitable. The Dads weigh in on the best and worst songs and the overall impact of this album on country music, modern fatherhood and their emotional state of mind. 

Plus: Dave goes full throttle in an impassioned “Minivan Rant” and tries to change Donnie’s mind once and for all.

Show Notes

03:11: First Reactions to the Album as a Whole: After Donnie recovers from “snot-bubble crying” during his passive listen, we discuss the songwriting quality, sincerity of the lyrics in a “songwriting-by-committee” approach and how “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” doesn’t seem to fit (even though it is very sad).

14:01: The Dad Life Sound Check: Donnie is a better parent thanks to “Huntin’ By Yourself” (even though he doesn’t hunt), and Dave finds a pillar of his parenting philosophy in “Whoever You Turn Out to Be.”

25:06: The Best Tracks from the Album: The Dads share more of their favorites, including “Front Door Famous” and “The Man He Sees in Me,” and how those songs inspire us to live up to the higher expectations that modern dads rightfully (and finally) are measured against.

32:36: The Worst Tracks from the Album: The Dads discuss the songs, like “All I Ever Do is Leave” and “Little Country Boys,” that seem more like filler material to get an LP out of this concept album.

36:00: “Fathers & Sons” Album Rating: The Dads wrap up the album review by rating “Fathers and Sons” on a scale of 1-5.

37:50: Change My Mind About Minivans: Dave launches into an impassioned and memorable “Minivan Rant” to change Donnie’s mind about the classic and highly versatile “FUV,” the family utility vehicle.

Thank you for listening. The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you use. If you want to see new episodes and more content delivered straight to your email inbox, please subscribe to our newsletter: countrymusicdads.substack.com. You can find everything we do on our website: countrymusicdads.com. And we’d love to hear what you think, so send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram @countrymusicdads, or via email countrymusicdads@gmail.com.

References

• Intro Music: “Dark Country Rock” by Moodmode
• “Hurricane” by Luke Combs
• “When It Rains It Pours” by Luke Combs
• “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” by Luke Combs
• “The Grand Tour” by George Jones
• “Huntin’ By Yourself” by Luke Combs
• “Whoever You Turn Out to Be” by Luke Combs
• “In Case I Ain’t Around” by Luke Combs
• “Front Door Famous” by Luke Combs
• “Remember Him That Way” by Luke Combs
• “The Man He Sees in Me” by Luke Combs
• “All I Ever Do Is Leave” by Luke Combs
• “Long White Line” by Sturgill Simpson
• “Little Country Boys” by Luke Combs
• “Beer Never Broke My Heart” by Luke Combs

Transcript

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang.

We’re driving a highly subjective, comically contrarian, often irreverent conversation about fatherhood and country music for people who have a passion for both.

My name is Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

My name is Donnie, and I’m also a country music dad.

Thanks for joining us.

In this episode, we break down Luke Combs’ 7th studio album entitled Fathers & Sons.

With Five Sons Between Us, Donnie and I felt like a review of this album in its entirety was not only necessary, it was inevitable.

An album like this was clearly created for the country music dad.

So, did Luke Combs with this project touch a nerve with his fellow fathers, or was this a case of too many dad songs to digest at the same time?

Let’s find out.

In 2016, Luke Combs emerged as a refreshing, more traditional alternative in a mainstream country music world dominated by pop and hip-hop-leaning, bro-country drivel that was all starting to sound about the same.

His first two hits, Hurricane.

And When It Rains, It Pours.

Establish Luke as the voice of both your everyman, blue-collar warrior, and your beer-drinking, good old boy, firing up Brooks and Dunn for the Thursday night Flip Cup tournament.

He coupled his traditional twang with modern themes, patched it behind his signature black Columbia PFG button-up shirt, and suddenly he was the brightest star in mainstream country music.

Then he became a dad.

Luke and his wife Nicole now have two young sons, and now we have a country album that seems like it was born purely from Luke Combs’ psyche as he adjusts his beer-drinking, good old boy, party bro facade into the new dad phase of life.

And I don’t blame him, because we’ve all been there.

It was jarring, exhausting, and nerving.

It was also beautiful and inspiring.

It’s unique that an artist as big as Combs would dedicate an entire album to that short, highly specific, but pivotal phase of life.

But perhaps Luke and his crew of songwriters did all of his dads and our feelings a favor, filling a void with a bunch of dad songs.

So, Donnie, what did you think of Fathers & Sons?

Donnie Well, before we start, Dave, I feel like you did me dirty on this one.

You’re like, hey, we’re going to do this Fathers & Sons thing.

It’s great.

A lot of good songs.

It’s Luke Combs.

And I’ll admit, I had not listened to anything but the radio song that came on from this, and I didn’t remember it that well.

So I came into it real fresh, and it was like a Tuesday.

I was like, okay, I’ll just put this on.

I had some writing to do for work.

I’m just going to put this on in the background.

I got it in my ears.

I’ll passively listen to it.

I’ll do my first passive listen.

That’s how I do these things.

When I’m doing a review, I passively listen, then I very carefully listen.

And as I’m passively listening, I’m picking up on some of the turns of phrases, clever, well-written songwriter style songs, collective of songwriters.

And I’m going, uh-oh, I’m going to start crying now.

And so I’m sitting at my desk, snot bubble crying to several of these songs.

And Dave, that was not cool, man.

It’s like, come on, didn’t we talk about this in our book episode where it’s just not right to have new parents read I’ll Love You Forever without knowing it’s coming?

Yeah, it should come with a warning label.

This was tough, dude.

It’s not the E for explicit.

It should be S for snot bubble.

I mean, there were a couple in there.

I was like, oh man, I’m crying about hunting.

I don’t hunt.

Why am I crying about this?

But yeah, overall, I think it was a good album.

I do.

I think it was fun to listen to.

These songs are well-written.

They are clearly written by committee, which is that happens, especially the star with the size of Combs.

But they did feel pretty personal, I have to say.

They felt much more personal than some of his other Everybody’s Experience songs.

Like When It Rains and Pours, anybody can really associate with that song.

They can understand it.

Everybody’s had some sort of breakup in their lifetime where they’re like, ha ha ha, I never have to deal with your mom again.

Most new parents who were expecting to be parents and want to be parents would have similar feelings to a lot of these songs.

So it’s not like it’s just his, but these felt more personal in my opinion.

I agree.

That’s the word that came to mind when I listened to it as well.

It felt like there was more meaning behind the words that he was singing.

I think it was like a surprise album.

They didn’t tease it.

It felt like a personal project.

It was kind of marketed as a personal project of his, that he had something that he wanted to say.

It came across that way.

I mean, what I will say, though, and I think that you were hinting at it in the open, is it too much?

Is it too many dad songs in a row?

I think there’s an argument to be made, that it was too big of a sandwich to swallow, but it ended up tasting pretty good.

Like, I think he ate too much, but it was still pretty tasty.

You know, like, he had a meal that had just too much in it.

It was like, well, you can’t put this away.

I might as well have the rest of this mac and cheese that’s out, like, that type of thing, and then you regret it.

But that’s kind of how I felt about this album.

I think it’s good, strong pop country music.

But most of Luke’s stuff is that way.

If you are in the right kind of a mood, if you’re in a reflective mood and you’re pondering your life as a dad or your relationship with your own dad, your relationship with your kids, and you do want to feel some feelings, this is one to throw into your headphones.

It’s not like an everyday listen.

I’m sorry that you had to deal with that on a Tuesday while you were at work.

Dude, so not cool.

He does touch on many aspects of the parenting journey.

Yeah.

Feeling inadequate, feeling joyful, thinking about your own relationship with your parents and how that’s going to translate to your relationship with your kids.

There’s a lot of pieces to take from it.

I’m glad that I listened through it and took a close listen.

It’s not going to be something that’s in my normal rotation, but especially as a dad, you’ll pull something out of several of these songs when you listen through it that really cuts to your core.

A lot of the writing is very clever.

More clever than pointed.

And I think that works just fine in a lot of this type of things.

I mean, as I said earlier, this is writing by committee.

That sometimes loses a little bit of the more pointed nature of singular authored songs.

Not making a value statement on either side of that.

We tend to see that through kind of a lens of one is better than the other.

I don’t think it really matters.

You get a more rounded song with more people, but it becomes more generalized.

And I think you lose some of the more pointed aspects of this.

But the imagery that is throughout this feels very much like it’s lived experience as opposed to expected lived experience.

And I think you get a lot of that when you get into some of the more corporate writing rooms through Nashville’s music and it’s, I mean, it’s created.

It’s intentional.

I mean, that’s what they’re aiming for.

But this one feels, it feels like a concept album without much of a concept behind it.

You know, like, this was very clearly a departure from Luke Combs’ regular going out, wearing your shirt and drinking your beer and flipping your cup type of music, which is fantastic.

And I love it.

He’s my favorite pop bro country guy without question.

But this does feel like a concept album without much of a concept.

Because like, they’re not hiding anything.

They’re not trying to put any envelope.

This is like his experience as a father.

It’s what he wanted to address along with his other co-writers and creators.

What I’m tripping on here, and this is, I would think, my main critique of it as like a standalone piece of art or country music or commercial experience, is that I can’t quite separate the beer-drinking, good-timing character that he created as Luke Combs, the guy who’s out there doing that and selling millions of records and selling out huge concert venues.

And this much softer dad side of things, which I think, you know, that’s on me, that’s not on him.

I have trouble squaring that round peg in this particular experience.

And after the passive listen, the very active listen, the critique listen that I took to it, I had some trouble with some of it.

I did.

I think that it’s a little trite.

Some of it is just a little too on the nose, but still it’s really good.

I can’t get past that.

I can’t, I’m like, I’m grasping at the straws of what is wrong with it to kind of pull it apart a little bit.

And the only thing that I’m having trouble with is separating the kind of sincerity of this album and his party boy vibe.

And that’s probably the point, but I’m having trouble separating the two.

I think he was a co-write on 10 out of the 12 or something.

It was a concept album.

And the fact that it was kind of a surprise, let’s get this out there makes me sense that it was just something important that was happening in his life.

That’s what makes it feel like a personal project that he just wanted to share.

And maybe he shared it a little bit too quickly or kind of pushed it out there.

I think it was actually released on Father’s Day in 2024.

So maybe that was some aspect where he was like, I want to hit that date.

I mean, are his parents divorced?

Do you know that?

I actually don’t know.

I don’t know anything about his own parents.

This is Dave from Post Production.

According to People Magazine, Luke Combs’ parents are not divorced.

So the only reason I bring that one is that Take Me Out to the Ballgame, the closing song, really felt like it didn’t belong on the album at all because the theme is all about how mom and dad broke up.

And it feels very much like an Absentee Dad vibe.

And that’s not what you get from the other songs about his family.

That one stuck out like it didn’t belong at all.

And he has a writing credit on that as well.

Don’t know how much he wrote of it.

And it doesn’t really matter.

That one felt like it didn’t belong on the list.

To me, that one, that really what pulled me out of it.

And that’s the last song on the album.

And I don’t know how often people listen to albums all the way through like they used to in large part because there’s such a single culture right now.

The TikTok versions of songs go viral, and then you go check them out.

Streaming unbundled the album and all those other kind of technical things about it.

But the last song on the album shouldn’t take you out of it.

It should kind of wrap it up, right?

It should be a nice bow, whatever that is.

This one kind of made me feel like they needed one more, and they were going to do a shout out to all those kids without dads in their lives.

It’s like, hey, it’s like a shout out to you kids with no dads.

Here’s one about baseball.

That one, I like the concept that I feel like somebody came up with that play on Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Let’s talk about An Absentee Father and how that would be like a really heartbreaking thing to hear.

Yes.

A version of that.

Exactly.

That we wrote from the famous song.

Yeah.

In my passive listen to it, I was like, oh, that’s sad too.

When I’m just listening, it’s like, oh, man, he’s getting me from every angle.

And then I’m taking notes on it.

Yeah.

As I’m listening to it, listen to the first part and it’s like, all right, this is sad.

And then I think even before the chorus happens, it’s like, oh no, and they’re divorced.

And he doesn’t get to see his dad at all.

Oh no, okay.

And it does, I agree with you, it kind of feels forced or something.

Yeah.

That like, all right, this is already kind of a sad song.

Let’s just make it extra sad.

And check the box that we haven’t talked about yet.

It’s like a George Jones play.

And you know, it’s like, let’s take this to like the umpteenth level of like, oh, oh yeah, that said, oh, oh, she’s dead.

Oh, he’s dead?

Oh man.

Dude.

It’s like, oh, come on.

Like, ah, that one, that one, it got me when I was listening passively, but I really had, I had trouble with it critically.

Yeah, it went on my list of my least favorites from the album because of that.

It was like a little, a little clunky.

So speaking of that, one of our recurring segments, we call the Dad Life Sound Check when we share a song or artist that is hitting us right now as we try our best to be great dads.

We figured we’d stay with the main topic this week, so we’re pulling that song straight from this album.

So Donnie, which song was your favorite from Fathers & Sons?

Huntin By Yourself.

I mean, that one was just so good.

In the passive listen, in the critical listen, like I had, there are no notes.

It’s a great song because it hits pretty hard.

For me right now, my oldest is less and less interested in hanging out with me.

He’s only nine, but he’s an older nine.

I sometimes have to be more strict than I want to be to get critical things done like take a shower, eat your dinner.

I’m not even talking about getting your homework done.

I mean, just like the real basics.

That doesn’t yield those fun memories that we had when we first did stuff together like baseball or playing at the playground or riding bikes together or anything like that.

It’s a little bit harder and I don’t think that we’re anywhere near.

Huntin Alone, for example, but like, you know, the stuff you do with them as a dad and a son, those are important things to do.

Everyone’s aware that this time goes fast.

Everybody tells you that.

It’s really annoying when you’re in the middle of it, but you know that it’s true.

As I look back on some of the last few years of our interactions, they have not been as fun as they were like four or five years before that.

I miss part of that.

I feel like I’ve screwed up.

I think every parent feels like they screwed up when they look back and they see that they made these mistakes.

You got to do the work to fix it, not to say that a Luke Combs song helped me be a better father.

But I slowed down a little bit after listening to that and changed a few minor things.

Also had a couple of realizations in real life that I needed to change the way I was approaching things.

And you know, I did.

And that song hit because, you know, they move too much, they talk too loud.

You’re never going to get the thing that you’re trying to do, but that’s really not the point.

The point is being together and experiencing those things.

And having your kid see you as Superman, I think it’s great.

You know, my dad was a caterer for many years when I was growing up.

And, you know, I worked in my dad’s catering company forever.

I thought that was, like, up here.

I thought it was, like, Jacques Appen.

I mean, I thought we were going to be on PBS right after Julia Child.

That’s what I thought.

That was the level I thought we were doing.

And now I know, but, like, it still was important to me that I had a little chef coat just like my dad.

And I was really worried that I had screwed up all of that with my oldest.

I got it with my youngest still.

He’s still doing it.

But the oldest, not as much.

And so this song hit hard and it hit home.

I feel like what hit me was that whenever you want to try to incorporate your kids into something, and cooking is one of those things that I know I should share that with my kids, it’s just so inefficient and messy.

And I’m someone who loved efficiency, and I’ve had to put that part of myself to death as a parent.

There is nothing efficient about it, especially having small kids.

And it’s interesting to hear you talk about that, about how you as the kid experienced that with your dad.

It might have been putting him out to have you help with this stuff.

You don’t really know what his perspective is.

But from your perspective, this was, you were like working at a Michelin star restaurant, and it was great.

Yeah.

If you don’t step back and get that perspective sometimes, you’re always going to see the ruined hunting trip, or the fact I didn’t get dinner done in an hour.

It took me three hours instead because of the mess that they made.

When maybe from their perspective, that was an awesome way to spend the evening.

It’s that very common message that you’re going to miss these moments even when they’re difficult at the time, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with it.

It lets you come to that conclusion.

Yeah.

They’ll try your patience and make you cuss.

They go, oh, that’s true.

They do.

They do that a lot.

But I’m trying so hard not to allow that to taint the next thing.

I know I have to get better at that and it’s something I’m working on.

I really, I want to be better at it.

And I think that that’s part of being real as a parent.

Some of us have a ton of parenting experience.

Some of us don’t.

And when you come in to each situation, you got to live it in that second.

And the only thing you can take into it is what your experience has been.

And that doesn’t mean that what you know is going to work in that situation.

And it doesn’t mean what you read in books is going to help.

It doesn’t mean what your friends told you about the exact same thing with similar types of kids is going to work.

You just got to be able to roll with it.

And that’s not easy for a person like me.

I know that.

And I’m trying to be better about it.

I don’t know if I am, but I’m trying.

So we’ll give that a shot.

Anyway, on that extremely light note, what was your favorite song?

We’re all just trying, man.

We’re all just trying our best.

My favorite is Whoever You Turn Out To Be.

That song, I think, describes what I hope is one of the pillars of my parenting philosophy, that I want my kids to feel supported no matter what their life looks like or what they’re into, even if it’s something completely different from the things that I’m into.

I feel like that also takes some practice because you want to share your passions with your kid and you imagine that, oh, they’re going to be just like me.

They’re going to be really into the sport that you love or the subjects you love, and you’re going to read the same books or be fired up about the same topics.

I just know from talking to enough of my friends with older kids that sometimes they’ll just totally surprise you and they’ll be into something completely different.

I always love playing baseball and who knows, maybe my kids are going to be hockey players.

A sport I know nothing about.

Maybe they won’t be into sports at all.

Maybe they’ll be artists or dancers or something.

And I want to prepare myself ahead of time so that I can embrace that and not give them the message that they have to be a certain way or act a certain way.

It seems kind of antithetical to me to the message you get from other country songs about father figures, that dad is someone that you look up to, that you emulate, you follow in his footsteps.

You’re going to get tough love from your dad to be a certain way or to live certain values.

And this is much more like I’m going to step back and let my kid become who they are without me trying to guide them too much.

And I think that’s a wise way to approach it.

I think our first instinct is here are all the values and rules that I want to instill in my kids and how am I going to make sure they get the message rather than letting them grow into who they’re going to be.

And you kind of be in there to be at the support and the guardrails for them as they figure that out.

It’s a deep song.

It was definitely a contender for my top song too.

I mean, I also felt it could have been seen as a opening for differences that may not be always discussed within country music.

There are expectations of masculine figures.

There’s a lot of expectation that you’re going to go and drink a beer and drive a truck and have mud on your tires and all that stuff.

And there’s a lot of different ways to be a man.

There’s a lot of different ways to be a father.

It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other or more country than the other.

To use that terminology, as I’m thinking about this as well, I mean, the conversation with my oldest tonight on the way to baseball practice, if you don’t want to play, I’m not going to be upset about it at all.

You got what you needed out of it.

You don’t need to worry about what I’m thinking about you playing sports.

But if you’re going to go, you’re going to have to work hard.

Those are the words I said to him.

I don’t know if it landed or not, but at least it was said.

And I think that I try and I hope that he’s okay with it.

Because he’s not into country music at all.

And he doesn’t like wearing western wear at all.

And I think he was kind of bummed about it because he did for a little while.

But I think it was more to make a connection than it was what he was interested in.

My youngest, however, would wear boots and a cowboy hat and pearl snaps every day if he was allowed to.

You don’t allow that?

Well, it’s a lot to wear to school, man.

I guess so.

And the belt buckle is kind of difficult to get in on and off without any extra help in the bathroom.

So, you know.

There are reasons.

Yeah, there’s logic to it.

But he’d wear it every day if he could.

You gotta allow the kids to be who they are.

Overall, one of the things I’ve found to be refreshing about this album is that it takes a much more modern view of fatherhood than any other country album that addresses it in any other way.

And I don’t think there are that many that are explicit.

There are a few, you know, like, go play catch with your dad, go hunt with your dad, go fishing with your dad type songs out there.

But there’s nothing in my mind or in my experience, and I may be wrong, because, hey, that seems to be the theme tonight that I’m wrong.

It’s called humility, Donnie.

Yeah, humility, something like that, whatever.

I don’t know if there are many other albums out there that do this with such a modern touch while still being very much country.

It feels like country album.

It sounds like a country album.

It follows a country album story art.

It checks every box of a country album while still taking a very modern approach to it, which is refreshing.

Yeah, it’s super unique.

I think what’s interesting about this song too, whoever you turn out to be was written by Red Aikens.

He is the primary writer for it.

It’s about how, hey, you can do whatever you want with your life.

Of course, his son is Thomas Rhett, who followed in his footsteps and is doing exactly what his dad’s doing.

I thought that was a fun fact.

That is a fun fact.

That works out well.

Other favorites, I think, you know, In Case I Ain’t Around, that seems like a cheap shot.

I mean, like, come on, man.

He hits you with that on the second track, too.

It’s like, this is like cool.

Let’s think about our death.

Yes, just in case.

Front Door Famous, I think, is a fabulous song, because anybody who has had small children, as they start talking, walking, doing that, no matter how long you’re away, they still have a little bit of problem with object permanence, right?

And so you come through the door, they’re like really excited to see you.

And it doesn’t matter if you were away for a weekend, or you went to work in the morning, or you went to the supermarket, you come back, it’s like, oh, daddy.

And then they’re here, and the imagery in that one, I think, was the best with the porch and the wooden floors.

There was just so much visceral connection to a home that made it feel very real and real to him, real to me.

I mean, I remember coming home to the pitter-patter of feet down the wood hallway.

I get it.

I expected that after we had our first son, because I was still working full-time, and so we had family members taking care of him during the day, and I was looking forward to that moment when I’d come home and he’d run into my arms and be so happy to see me.

But for him, for whatever reason, when I got home, he would actually burst into tears and run away.

Oh, buddy.

Because he was so attached to his caregivers, and so I was not Front Door Famous.

I was maybe Front Door Infamous.

I’m sorry to hear that.

I know.

It was a pretty crushing way to enter working fatherhood.

But I got through.

We’re fine.

He’s not an emotive guy.

Yeah.

Maybe differently emotive.

Yeah.

Just not emotive towards me.

I’m sorry.

My third son, though, he very visibly loves me.

So I’ve got that going for me right now.

I’ll hold on to that for as long as I can.

There you go.

I do have two more.

And I would say it’s kind of a one-two punch.

It’s Remember Him That Way and Then The Man He Sees in Me.

So remembering your father the way he was before he got old.

I mean, like, it’s the reality of it, no matter what.

The inevitability, the alternative is not as good.

They’re not lifting small buildings to allow you to do whatever you want anymore.

They need a little bit of help doing stuff.

It’s like, hey, bud, can you come over and help me bring something upstairs?

Like, five, ten years ago, that’s just not something that would have happened.

You know, that’s rough.

It’s hard not to like that song.

It’s very catchy.

It’s like a chantable anthem song.

I love a good chantable song.

And that whole Superman imagery, my favorite line is, he says, but I guess time is his kryptonite.

It’s a good line.

It’s kryptonite for everybody.

And we start to feel that when you get to be a dad of a certain age.

Yeah.

And then on the flip side of the coin, the man he sees in me, right after you’re like, oh yeah, I looked up to him so much.

Now he’s older and slower.

And then it’s like, oh, I have to do that for my kids.

I was like, oh no.

Oh man, Luke, you’re killing me.

I will say that the album as a whole, I would say until like the last three or four songs, really from a song picking and order perspective was extremely strong.

That helped a ton.

The somewhat weaker songs were supported.

The story arc was really good.

The Man He Sees in Me was the most inspiring song to me.

That to me makes me remember my early days as a parent where I had a lot of imposter syndrome about whether I was doing a good job, whether I knew what I was doing, whether my kids could tell that I had no idea what I was doing.

I always hear those stories that like, oh yeah, dad is like, he’s Superman.

And there’s this period of time when they’re young, when they worship you as their parent, you got to just soak up that ego boost that you can do no wrong.

To me, like ever since I was Front Door Infamous to him, I felt like that wasn’t how he saw me actually.

Until the other night, for some reason, Kim asked him to rate me on my intelligence and my like physical abilities.

They were reading some book.

I still don’t know why they were talking about this and how she could do this to me, but she asked him to rate me and I was getting ready for it.

Like usually in our household, I take the clown persona so they, like mom can do no wrong and I’m the butt of the jokes and I enjoy that role.

It’s great, it works for us.

And so I was getting ready for like the negative number ratings.

Like let’s hear it, like pile on.

He gave me all 10s.

I expected to get a 3 in intelligence and he’s like no, dad knows everything.

He gets a 10 and it just floored me.

But it reminded me that there is that period of time when your kids think you’re awesome.

It does kind of challenge you.

That is how they’re seeing me.

I have to live up to that a little bit.

I have to put in the work and at least get part way there.

That’s true.

I mean it’s a ton of work to be a parent.

I think it’s more work now than it has been.

Especially for dads because we kind of got a pass for a couple generations there of doing anything.

And I think this is for the better.

And especially for sons that dads are more engaged across the board.

I was on a field trip with my oldest and the boys were acting up.

I mean, they were being, you know, nine and ten-year-old little kids.

One of the moms said, well, you know, boys will be boys, which absolutely grades me.

Because it gives them such a pass for being just unmitigated idiots.

I know.

I hate that term.

It’s just not, it’s unacceptable.

I mean, it’s not helpful.

Nope.

You just, you’re assuming, like, of course.

Of course, they’re going to be idiots.

Like, no, they shouldn’t be idiots.

And I pushed right back.

What else do you expect?

They’re boys.

The boys will be boys.

And I said, I expect more.

I expect them to do better.

And I think that when we show up more, we get those tens.

What songs were your least favorites?

Feel like after The Man He Sees in Me, and maybe All I Ever Do Is Leave, I feel like it kind of got a little repetitive.

All I Ever Do Is Leave is a little trite.

It’s a little bit on the nose, it’s kind of like the dad version of the long white line or being on the road as a musician.

Of course, you leave.

You’re a traveling musician.

That’s what you do.

I feel like the back end of the album, like most of the B-side, felt like we already covered these topics.

Like, this could have been epic EP, but he went with the LP and it’s a longer album of kind of similar tracks.

That’s my feeling on it.

I even got that sense from one of the songs on the A-side, Little Country Boys.

Similar to what you’re just talking about, about boys will be boys.

You got to let boys play rough and get dirty and all this stuff, and you didn’t need a song to remind me.

Whereas the other things, the more like deeper emotional messages were the things that I do appreciate being reminded of.

To push a little bit on that, interspersed with those deeper messages on the album, that song may just be that catchy hook song that gets someone in to listen to it a little bit more deeply.

Because there are a few lines in there that made me smile.

The screwing around in church line made me smile because I definitely screwed around during synagogue services with my dad.

And we definitely got in trouble.

And we definitely almost got kicked out a number of times.

I do that with my kids too, like push the envelope a little bit.

I agree with you, especially on the boys will be boys aspect of it.

Sometimes we get a little wrapped up in the modern parenting thing and we forget.

It’s not about boys being boys.

It’s about kids doing kids things.

Maybe the language wasn’t right in that song.

And some of it was a little bit annoying and kind of short-sighted and old-fashioned, but allowing kids to go do and be messy and be rude and learn their lessons.

There’s some value in that.

You got to stay away from the helicopter parenting as much as possible.

That’s something I have to learn a lot.

And it’s hard.

It’s hard to do.

So I don’t want my boys to be boys.

I want my kids to be kids.

There you go.

That would have solved the problem for me, I think.

Yeah, even as with three boys here, when I’m at the playground and number three, who’s not even two yet, takes a big spill.

A lot of people freak out when this happens.

And I take pride in the fact that I don’t.

But also, I think I get a lot of forgiveness from those people that watch that because they’re like, he’s a third boy.

He’s super tough.

So of course he can handle that.

If it was a girl, maybe they wouldn’t give me that.

You wouldn’t be great.

Yeah.

All right.

So this is our first time doing an album review.

Let’s give it a rating, one through five, five being iconic.

One being, let’s never listen to this again.

What would you give this one, Donnie?

I’d say between a three and 3.5.

It’s definitely good.

There are some very clear weaknesses in the album overall.

Songwriting is good.

It’s a little repetitive, but it’s a good album.

I liked it a lot.

It will be part of my rotation of Luke Combs music.

Don’t know if I’ll listen to it all the way through, but I may pull some songs on the occasional, make you want to cry about how you’re not being a good father type of playlist.

I also gave it a 3.5.

I am glad that it exists.

It helps me feel like I have a closer connection to Luke Combs, the artist personally.

Like, we’re going through the same things.

I got you, Luke.

And thank you for helping me feel these things in a different way.

It is a good acoustic-leaning country album and in the right mood, on Father’s Day, in the morning.

I’ll put this one on and reflect.

Yeah.

But I got to tell you, long neck, ice cold beers.

Never been better.

That one is always going to be in the rotation.

That’s a great song.

I love that song.

Can still see my youngest dancing his diaper to that one.

Yeah.

My oldest used to point them out in the grocery store.

That was one word, long neck ice cold beer.

He didn’t know beer.

He knew long neck ice cold beer.

There they are.

That’s hilarious.

As they should be.

As they should be.

As you know, Dave, one of our recurring topics and recurring segments is one called, Change My Mind.

In a world where flexibility in opinion is seen as weakness, we wanted to model good behavior to our kids and our listeners, as we respectfully and humorously try to change each other’s mind about pressing issues of country music, fatherhood and other nonsense.

As much as it pains me, I have to say, the minivan is an outdated vehicle for modern family transportation.

Dave, change my mind.

This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, so I can’t wait.

Dads, listeners, at one time, I too was an insecure new father, lacking self-confidence.

I was reluctant to take the plunge and drive a minivan for fear of what that might say about me as a man, my mission to be a cool dad and not to be a frumpy one.

But I have seen the light.

Me and my Honda Odyssey, we are all in on the minivan.

I mean, you might prefer a sports car or a luxury car or a muscle car, anything to massage your fragile ego, and that’s fine.

I’m not here to tell you how to express yourself, but we’re talking about the large family vehicles, the type that can haul multiple children, their friends, an occasional grandma or grandpa, all the stuff you got at Home Depot or at your God forsaken two-hour bin shopping trip to Costco.

That’s the class of vehicle we’re talking about.

And if you think that driving a gas guzzling massive refrigerator box looking SUV with quote unquote third row seating instead of a minivan will make you look cool, you are a fool and you are setting yourself up for years of failure and misery.

And for me the argument starts and ends with one thing and on the modern models, there are actually two, it’s the sliding doors.

The minivan has sliding doors and your massive SUV does not.

That’s the end of the story.

Because if you’ve ever tried to squeeze a kicking screaming toddler into a car seat while trying not to slam the car next to you at target, you know what I’m talking about.

If you have kids that like to do things themselves, things like swing open a traditional car door, or hitting nearby poles or trees or younger siblings, then you know what I’m talking about.

And if you’ve ever squeezed in to a tiny parking space, say in a parking structure in Santa Monica, and you could not squeeze your dad bod out of the driver side door, nothing can save you in that situation except for sliding doors.

The minivan, Donnie, has everything you need and a family vehicle.

And it also has sliding doors.

And we’re talking about modern transportation.

In the modern world, it’s all about appearances.

We’re all narcissists.

We want our image on social media to look cool.

And maybe the minivan just, it’s not cool enough for your personal brand.

But, I’ll say, and I’m looking at you, GMC Yukon, Honda Pilot, Kia Telluride, there is no cool, like, effortless cool.

And nothing says, I don’t give a f**k, like driving a minivan.

I’m done.

Oh, slow clap, slow clap, all day long.

Dave, that was beautiful.

That brings a tear to my eye.

I’m crying almost as much as I did at the beginning of the Luke Combs album.

My God, that was beautiful.

Oh, God.

That was a master class in rhetoric.

Your freshman teacher would be so proud.

Oh, my God.

I went to engineering school.

We didn’t communicate verbally.

No, that’s fair.

I thought you probably had to take at least one or two classes over there on the other side of campus.

My God, that was a piece of work, my friend.

First, I must admit something.

My first car was a 1991 light blue Toyota Previa.

I did enjoy that car.

It was a good car to have.

It wasn’t mine.

It was the family car.

But I drove it, for the most part, to school and to wherever I needed to go.

And it was very helpful.

It was useful.

My argument against the minivan isn’t so much that it’s not practical or it’s uncool.

It’s that I don’t think that it works for modern family life.

Here’s my thinking.

Now, I don’t have a gigantic family.

I don’t have like 19 kids or anything like that.

I got two.

When both of them are rocking two sets of baseball sets of gear, the back of the SUV that we have, which is a small SUV, we got it when we lived in a city, is much more convenient for throwing all that stuff in there than the minivan.

Granted, you can keep the third rows up in all of them, I know.

But when you’re talking about the big family one, we do have third row in that one.

We can still get more stuff into it than I think the minivan does.

And it’s not like they’re that much more gas efficient than the SUVs, if we’re being real.

I will say that was extremely persuasive, and I might go out and change my sedan tonight into a minivan to my wife’s great dismay.

The reason we don’t have one is because of her, not so much me, but throw her right under the bus.

Or right under the minivan, I suppose.

But I think that the smaller and mid-size SUVs have taken over that role.

The sliding door argument, though, that’s pretty clutch.

I would agree.

That’s a good call.

It’s hard to beat that feature.

If an SUV had sliding doors, I would entertain that.

I would.

You are right.

I’ve moved both of my older ones to the back row just for various reasons.

And now I can’t put seats down because their car seats are there, their boosters are there.

And that does cut down on the cargo space flexibility.

Although, all my Costco stuff did fit in my last trip.

I had to stack it up in the kind of narrow minivan trunk.

Yes.

But if I wanted to, I could go all in on versatility and strategically locate those boosters so I could maximize my cargo space.

You could.

Yeah, the sliding doors, I don’t know if I could live without those.

Even when my kids are grown up, it’s really nice.

I totally see the value in the utility of that vehicle.

It’s like an SUV, right?

It’s a family utility vehicle as opposed to a SUV, which is a sports utility vehicle.

You see, that’s what really all parents should just forget the stigma of the minivan and look at it from a practical perspective.

I wish that they could see beyond the soccer mom stigma.

I mean, it’s not like you’re in the Grand Caravan with the wood paneling anymore, though that was pretty cool too.

I know, it might come back.

You never know.

There was a Grand Caravan in my early childhood as well.

That was a kind of a maroon color, I remember that.

But it’s funny to think about how that has evolved from the must have suburban experience to being seen as absolutely horrifying as part of it.

I mean, there aren’t that many.

I mean, at school drop-off, they’re all SUVs or sedans.

Very, very few minivans.

But the minivans, the utility of that is great.

Look, I will say, I have been persuaded.

The minivan is not an outdated vehicle for modern family transportation.

I will say that it is probably not the must have item that it was in the late 80s and early 90s.

That being said, it is a very good vehicle for what you need it to be.

And so Dave, I will say, unequivocally, you’ve changed my mind.

It was a first time for everything.

Don’t get used to it.

Thank you for listening.

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Stay tuned for our next episode when we ask the question, when should country artists choose family over fans?

Until next time, whether you’re at the dance hall, the playground, or the schoolyard, or just folding some laundry.

Thanks for tuning in.

We’ll talk to you soon.

Cheers, cheers.

Just green minty tea tonight.

Nice, that’s a great life choice.