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The Perfect Country Playlist for Father’s Day

Father’s Day is almost upon us and the Dads figured every father needs some tunes to listen to while he is practicing his well-deserved self-care. So whether you are watching the grill or watching your kids mow the lawn we’ve got the Playlist to help you celebrate yourself. 

Mentioned in This Episode:

Show Notes:                               

  • 09:52 Dad Life Sound Check – Dave is trying to wrap his head around being master of ceremonies for the summer instead of shipping the kids off to camp. Mick starts wondering about the bucket list differences between younger and older adults.        
  • 17:46 HARDY Report – Hardy appears on the Jimmy Kimmel Show and gives a free show that Dave attends afterwards 
  • 21:54 Farm Boy Update – Mick had a critter eat his new green beans and he is not happy about it.
  • 23:21 The Dads share the eleven best songs to listen to on Father’s Day. The list they put together is pretty wide ranging as it spans 35 years of different country music styles celebrating all things Dad and Father’s. Believe it or not they only had one song show up on both of their lists. Can you guess which one it was?  

Sources:

You can find the playlist on Spotify and via our ⁠website⁠. You can find all of our back episodes on our webpage ⁠www.countrymusicdads.com⁠. Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠Facebook⁠ @countrymusicdads. And most importantly, please give us a 5-star review and share the show with all of your friends.

Transcript

And I have to admit, I have used the, Let Me Tell You A Secret line on My Kids before.

I don’t know if it works.

Did you sing it?

Oh, good gosh, no.

I know it definitely wouldn’t work, because I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a 20.

We’re bringing you highly subjective, sometimes questionable, but always 100% authentic country music analysis, as only two dads in the trenches of modern parenting can do it.

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

My name is Mick, and I am also a country music dad, and thank you for joining us.

Father’s Day is coming up.

We’re getting ready to celebrate Father’s Day.

So we thought that we should create a Father’s Day mixtape with some of our favorite songs about dad and fatherhood to keep you entertained while you are spending the day doing anything and everything that celebrates you, and me, and Dave, and all the rest of us out there.

It’s your day, it’s your day, Mick.

It’s our day.

Our day, yes.

It’s our day.

Speaking of days, how is your day?

It’s a good day, today is a good day.

So we’re recording this right before Memorial Day weekend.

So we are traveling as a family for Memorial Day for the holiday weekend, traveling on an airplane with three kids for the first time.

So I’m kind of procrastinating and preparing for that.

I’m not sure if I’m prepared emotionally for that, but it’s gonna be an adventure.

I’ve flown with the two older ones once and it went fine.

You don’t have to prepare emotionally as you have to prepare physically, in my opinion.

You gotta have two things.

You gotta have a portable battery pack for your device, depending on the length of the flight, because sometimes watching those videos on the iPad, on the plane can really suck down the power.

Yeah, that would be a tragedy.

Yes, and if you’re old enough, if your kids are old enough, make sure you pack gum, because it helps with the ear popping and everything as you’re rising up in the altitude.

Yes, very true.

I’m not too worried about the older two, because as long as the devices are charged, backed up, they’re good.

They’ll turn into little zombies and they’ll have fun too, because it’s like a novelty to fly.

They’ll get to look out the window and everything.

And they’re pretty well behaved.

They’re mellow little buddies.

But maybe the other issue is he’s a little too big to sleep through the flight, a little too active.

And he loves his snacks.

He’s going to just crush all of his snacks in seconds.

Pack more.

So yeah, I’m a little worried.

How long of a flight is it?

I think it’s only like two and a half hours, something like that.

That’s not too bad.

I have to prepare emotionally, because I get stressed out when we travel.

Airport’s busy.

It’s LAX packing their car seats and all the stuff.

Is he going to sit on either your Kim’s lap, or did you guys buy him a seat?

We did not buy him a seat.

So he’s going to be in one of our laps or with one of the other boys.

That might be for the Wiggles.

That might, you might be able to just put two in one seat, and that might, I don’t know.

Yeah, but I think I want to prepare emotionally, because it’s going to be an adventure and I want to enjoy myself.

I don’t want to be so stressed out that I need a few days to wind down from it.

It’s going to be chaotic, but it’s a nice family adventure.

And if I can just take some deep breaths and just accept the fact that this is going to be a little chaotic, but it’ll be a great family memory.

We’ll get through it.

It’s not that long of a flight.

That’s the whole key focus on the fact that it doesn’t last forever.

The wheels up, wheels down.

There you go.

And then you go on from there.

I’m going to choose to relax for this trip.

It’s going to be fun.

Positive thoughts.

Positive thoughts.

So that’s what’s happening with me right now, or what will be happening with me shortly.

What’s up with you?

I am just extremely busy right now.

I know this sounds like a broken record, but just doing the preparations for the celebration of Luke, that party’s going to happen on Memorial Day weekend.

So the cleaning out the garage and all the stuff that goes with that has been just really keeping me on my tail.

But those aren’t the best stories I have right now.

Dave will have some input on this one too, because we had a situation where the worlds collided.

We’ve got a cousin who lives out in Bakersfield, and Kelly and Luke wanted to go out and help him celebrate his high school graduation and be supportive because not very many people from this family here in the Midwest were able to make it out to California, but they wanted to go out and support Isaiah, and that was great.

That was fine.

Kelly was like, she said, Hey, reach out to Dave and find some things in LA that might be fun to do.

We don’t want the typical tour stuff.

We want some interesting adventures or hikes or sites, stuff off the beaten path that the locals know and everything.

I’m like, Okay, I do that.

Dave in his super organized fashion sends me this email that’s got 10 different activities and things that broken down with directions and links and everything.

I showed it to Kelly and she’s like, Oh my God, I didn’t expect him to go to that much detail.

She’s like, But this is great.

I do everything at 100 percent, man.

Exactly.

I don’t want speed.

No, and you gave them so much to think about.

Ultimately, they decided to go up and we hadn’t in the Midwest, we had no idea that if you’re in Bakersfield, you are only like an hour and a half from the Sequoias on the southern part of their range.

We had no idea and seeing the Sequoias is a bucket list type item for a lot of people.

That’s what they chose to do for their little extra adventure.

But then a couple of days after they picked that, I get another message from Dave.

As we’ve all heard past episodes, my son is looking to be an engineer, Dave was an engineer.

My son is interested in things that fly up in the sky, the aerospace world.

Dave’s wife works for an aerospace company and Dave was like, I don’t know if Luke could be interested in this but I might be able to organize a tour of my wife’s company.

I was like, well, I’m just going to go ahead and tell you yes now and then I’ll call Luke and find out.

Dave, I’ll let you take it over from here.

Tell them what you guys were able to pull off to just make Luke’s trip that much better.

Well, they do offer tours at Kim’s company and we’ve taken the boys on the tour before.

It’s cool.

They’re like a really exciting startup rocket company.

They do give tours on the weekend, so we were able to arrange that and get them in.

Really a credit to them because they only had a few days in town.

I was worried.

I gave them the laundry list of ideas for things to do.

But I was worried that they had the graduation party to attend up in Bakersfield.

Bakersfield is not close to where Kim’s company is, but they made it happen.

When we met up, I brought all my boys down there for the tour and it was a lot of fun.

Personally, I love meeting your family because a lot of the guys like you Mick that I meet at the At Home Dad convention, I don’t get to meet their families, I just know the guys.

That is such an interesting point because we feel like, a lot of the friends we make in the At Home Dad world, we feel like we know their family, we feel like we know their kids because we talk about that type of stuff so much.

But to actually meet the family and the kids is pretty rare.

Yeah, exactly.

Our world’s colliding was just a really fun experience for me, like meeting Kelly, talking to Luke, and there are a few things that Luke said, I was like, you’re Mick’s son, I can tell.

It was very apparent to me.

I wish I had an example, but it was just a feeling.

You can’t just throw it out there and not give me an example.

I don’t know what it was.

It was something he said or the way he said it, and I was like, Mick, is that you?

Yeah, so it was a lot of fun.

It was a really quick check-in because they had to get on the road and everything, but yeah, really fun to meet them.

I’ve lived here all my life, so I love hosting people and sharing my favorite stuff around here.

I’m glad they were able to check some of those things off of their list.

They were very ambitious with their plans.

They were driving all over the place.

Awesome.

That’s part of the LA experience, I think.

You got to be in your car.

Luke was bemoaning the LA traffic.

We’d prefaced him before.

He’s like, this is terrible.

This traffic is just bad.

It’s just terrible.

I’m like, yeah.

Yeah.

I like driving a little bit, or at least just being in your car.

You’re not always driving, you’re just sitting there.

My dad left soundcheck.

I heard a new song.

It’s by Jackson Dean called Don’t Take Much.

Part of the chorus, the punch line of the song is, it don’t take much to have it all.

It’s about the simple life.

Lots of country songs like that.

But it hit me at the right time because it came on my Spotify.

As I’m thinking about summer break coming up, the boys only have a few more weeks of school before they’re out.

A lot of parents around here, they’re all talking about summer camps because they’re mostly working parents.

They got to line up all the summer camps and summer camps are filling up and people are stressed out.

Like, what am I going to do with my kids?

I was on a call with a virtual book club with other stay-at-home dads.

We were talking about summer plans and these are all stay-at-home dads like us.

A couple of them gave me some new perspective on it because I think when I was thinking about the summer, I adopted the feelings of a lot of the parents around here that I know that are stressed out about it.

That, what am I going to do with my kids all summer?

How can I keep them occupied?

Can I find a summer camp?

I decided, I’m just going to go, I’m going to try no summer camp.

I’ll just have both or all three of the boys at home with me, and we’ll go have some adventures, and I’ll try to have a daddy summer camp.

I tell this to the other working parents around here, and they look at me like I’m crazy.

You’re just going to hang out with your kids all summer?

Seriously?

I’m like, is that a mistake?

Am I wrong to do that?

But the guys in the book club call, a couple of them said, oh man, I can’t wait for summer.

I love it because there’s no agenda.

You don’t have to scramble in the morning to get them all dropped off and lunch is packed and everything.

And you, as the dad at home or the parent at home, you are the master of ceremonies.

And you can pick whatever you want to go do.

You can also pick nothing.

You can just hang out at home, go to the park.

And so a couple of them were just really excited for it.

And so I think I’ve kind of changed my perspective now.

Like I have a new outlook on the summer.

For one, I get a break from the morning scramble, breakfast, pack lunches, get out the door on time, remove that stress from the mornings and open up some opportunities just to be present with my boys and make some memories and just do stuff that we wouldn’t get a chance to do during the school year when there’s all these other things going on.

So I’m excited.

I’m not stressed out anymore.

Good, you should be excited.

You know, we did a lot of adventuring like that when my older two were little.

Now we would throw a different camp in there from time to time if they found something that they were interested in just because it does kind of help break up the monotony, but it is nice to have no agenda.

Do you want to go to the beach today?

Yes, no, okay.

No wrong answer, because you can go to the beach tomorrow or whatever the case, you know, we used to like to try to rotate parks around town because going to a different park is just like a new adventure itself.

And I assume you guys have a plethora of parks out there to choose from.

Yeah, they already have a list for all rotation.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, they’re at the perfect age where parks just are awesome.

They’re just stoked to go to the park.

Right.

New park.

Yeah, that song hit home for me because I think I kind of in my mind complicated things a little bit and just hearing about all the summer camps, like, oh, what kind of enrichment are you going to offer your kids this summer through their summer camp experience or whatever?

And really, it doesn’t take that much to create some memories with your kids.

Like, they’re very simple.

Kids can find an adventure anywhere.

I know, I think I’ve said that before, but it’s true.

It doesn’t have to always be scripted, you know?

Find the, or let them find the joy in life.

And that doesn’t have to be in some organized episode.

Sometimes there’s a lot of joy to be found with sticks, leaves and mud.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah, actually my oldest just, he’s missing a day of school this week and they have like theme days for each day.

And Friday is Otter Pop Day.

So all the kids get an Otter Pop.

Do you know what Otter Pops are?

You have those?

It’s kind of like, it’s like a little frozen treat.

Okay, I mean, I figured it’s a popsicle thing.

Is it?

Yeah, it’s like this frozen ice.

It’s almost like a portable slushy.

Is he missing Otter Pop Day?

He’s missing Otter Pop Day and he was devastated.

But I told him we’re just gonna miss Otter Pop Day.

So actually after we hang up, I think I have to go find some Otter Pops because I told him I’d find them and we could have Otter Pop Day at home.

But just that, I just declare one day Otter Pop Day this summer.

He’s going to be so excited.

Oh yeah.

But it can also be something to build towards.

Get your room cleaned up and we can have an Otter Pop or whatever the case is.

Don’t fight with your brother and then you can pick the flavor of Otter Pop or whatever.

Just some type of a prize type thing.

Well, I was going to say prize, but yeah, let’s be honest.

I was driving down the road on Sunday morning.

They were doing this little Sunday morning tribute to songs that were going back to the early 2000 and 90s.

They said it was like Sunday on the 90s, but this song I don’t think came out in the 90s.

I think it’s a little bit older than that, but that’s not the point.

Terri Clark’s I Want to Do It All just hit me the right time there because we’re still in this little change in between life with the high school graduation and the getting ready for college thing.

This chorus talks about all the different things that this Terri wants to do.

That just made me wonder about a lot of our recent high school grads.

I was just thinking to myself, and I wasn’t just thinking about Luke.

What do they want to do?

What are their dreams?

Do they want to go to Paris?

Do they want to go to Mardi Gras?

Those are just some of the different lines in the song.

Then I was like, okay, why do I need to only think about what these recent high school kids want to do?

What are these things that are still on my bucket list?

What do I want to do?

Do I want to do with Kelly together?

Where do we want to travel together?

That type of stuff.

It just hit me at the right time with the theme of, it’s great to have things to look forward to, like Otter Pops.

It’s great to have things to dream about, even if they’re just like the pipe dream thing, because you can’t just get stagnant in your life.

You’ve always got to be thinking of something to get you excited.

I hadn’t heard that song, so it’s a jam.

It’s older.

It’s like I said, it’s older.

I think it’s, Terri came out in the 90s and she was big in the 90s.

I think this song might be a little bit older.

Yeah, at least when I saw the title, I think right now, I mentioned the last episode, like life is full and we’re just doing stuff with the kids, even thinking about the summer, like I want to do all this stuff.

Like at the end of the school year, feeling a little bit like maybe this is a little bit too much that I’m involved with here.

But I don’t know.

Life’s short, man.

Just got to do stuff, get out there.

Yeah.

Speaking of doing stuff, what’s Hardy doing?

Hardy was just in LA yesterday and I saw him.

Yeah.

Of course you did.

Of course I did.

If Hardy is anywhere in LA, I will find a way to be in the vicinity.

He was the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.

So I was able to get some tickets to see him.

So he was the musical guest and they had this outdoor concert right behind the Al Capitan Theater in Hollywood, where they filmed the Kimmel Show.

Brought a couple of friends, a friend of mine from college, and Country Cutler came with me also, the LA Country Music Luminary, Country Cutler.

A lot of logistics for getting to a filming of a TV show in LA, because the tickets are free.

They’re free, so they’re not guaranteed.

You got to wait in line.

Was this tickets just for the filming and the show, or just the show, or how does that all work?

This was just for the outdoor concert.

It was something different.

Usually the musical guest comes in, they play one song in the studio during the show.

But this one was he actually played, I think six songs outside.

It was like a little mini concert out in the parking lot behind the theater.

So it was a separate event.

So I didn’t get to see the Kimmel Show, but we lined up for the mini Hardy concert.

Jimmy Kimmel came out and he introduced Hardy, which is cool.

He said something like the crowd was actually pretty big and he mentioned, Kimmel mentioned that this was one of the bigger crowds that he’s seen from one of these outdoor concerts.

Honestly, it was a surprise to me because I thought that Hardy is a big star now, but I didn’t think that his star power had gotten out here to LA.

You’re right in the middle of Hollywood.

It’s not really the demographic that you would expect would be a bunch of Hardy fans.

But Kimmel came out and he was like, I didn’t know there are so many rednecks in LA and got a good laugh.

Kimmel’s town is bigger than Hardy’s town.

That’s true.

Way bigger.

But I thought for a while that Hardy’s had this huge rise in popularity in just the last year, and this is my seventh time seeing him.

Is that a lot?

Seven times in one year, maybe then you might have a problem.

Spread out over a few years.

I know.

I know.

I was just giving you a hard time.

But yeah, each time I go, the crowd is bigger and bigger.

I thought that maybe his rise was attributed to the fact that he rode Morgan Wallen’s coattails a little bit.

He opened for Wallen on his big tour.

So I thought maybe he was just by association.

Morgan Wallen’s popularity rose, so Hardy rose with him.

But at all these shows, I’m seeing a Hardy crowd just looks different than a Morgan Wallen crowd or a typical pop country crowd.

People are a little bit rougher, more tattoos, a little more aggressive.

I think he really has tapped into this audience.

And I think it’s like people like him really like his stuff and his brand of just irreverent.

I’m going to play whatever style of music I like, and I’m going to spin around the stage and flip people off.

And even for national TV, he threw out a couple of middle fingers.

So we got the full experience from Hardy.

I was worried he’d be a little watered down, but it was great and just odd to see Hardy and a Hardy crowd right in the middle of Hollywood.

Felt like a Hardy show, man.

It was fun.

What a treat to see him on a random Tuesday afternoon right here in my hometown.

That sounds awesome.

It was fun.

So we’ll link it on the show notes.

It’s on the whole concerts on YouTube.

Did a bunch of his more rock sounding tracks, kind of the direction his career is going in right now.

Little Hardy right here in my backyard.

It’s great.

So what’s going on in your backyard?

I know you’ve been out there a lot.

I have, and it’s not great because this farm, well, this farm is going to be short and sweet and to the point there’s a critter in the garden.

I don’t know what it is, but it mowed off a whole bunch of lettuce and that’s fine.

That usually happens.

Cause lots of times I just grow the lettuce to feed to the chickens anyway, but the lettuce was planted right next to a row of green beans.

Cause I do try to do stuff to maximize space that they call like, you know, secession planting where you kind of can plant two things in the same space at the same time because they’ll mature at different levels.

Well, it could have been a bunny.

It was probably a bunny.

Could have been a groundhog, but he decided to eat while he was, you know, at the salad bar, chew the tops off of this entire row of green beans.

And I got to replant this entire row of green beans.

And that kind of just really made me mad for obvious reasons.

Eat a rabbit out there.

Something.

Probably a rabbit.

Again, I don’t know.

But yeah, that’s the perils of farming, my man.

Sometimes you just got to deal with the critters.

How do you usually deal with critters?

Is that when you go get your gun and go hunting?

I live in the city limits, so there are certain things we can’t talk about.

And we’ll go off the record for this one.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We’ll just leave it at that.

Father’s Day is coming up, as we said before.

It’s our day.

We get to do what we want, get to celebrate the way we want.

But Dave and I thought it would be good to have some music to listen to while we celebrate ourselves.

So kind of like we did with the parenting day from hell, we each kind of picked a few different songs.

And, you know, we’ll kind of talk about them a little bit and why we picked them and things of that nature.

Dave, if you agree, I think we should start with the one song that made both of our lists because there’s only one.

Yeah, let’s do it.

Okay.

The Father’s Day mix, Dave.

Here it comes.

Exactly.

First track.

The first track is That’s My Job by Conway Twitty.

Turn back the clock, Conway Twitty.

I like this one because when this song comes to mind for me, it’s when I’m kind of stuck in the minutia of everyday life tasks, like finding the kids a snack, cleaning up that spill, restocking the soap in the bathroom, filling out that one form for school.

And I think like, like, you know, I’m down on the floor cleaning up that spill.

And I’m like, well, this is my job.

If I don’t do it, no one else will.

And that’s, that’s, I think what gives me a little bit of pride in my role as an at-home parent, kind of, I’m helping to set the foundation for our family and, and kind of doing the jobs that need to get done.

The song goes much deeper than that, like, not only can the father be the foundation of the family, but you’re kind of the backstop when things are going poorly or when a kid faces the struggles in life.

So it goes beyond just kind of the stuff I do around the house.

Well, you know, maybe that’s setting the foundation for the future of my kids.

Know that I’ll be there for them for the little things.

I’ll also be there for them for the bigger things when life gets complicated later on.

Yeah, that kind of like perfect segue into the, you know, as either the second or third verse where the kid’s talking about wanting to go do his own things and, you know, only dad doesn’t just like completely get behind it.

But then he says, if it doesn’t work, I’m here.

Certainly foundational, but also definitely something that you can just latch on to and whatever like you said might be on your hands and knees cleaning up a spill might just be waxing philosophically, poetically, as you’re watching your kids do their particular little thing.

But it just always goes back to that’s my job.

That’s what I do.

Everything I do is because of you, you know, that’s part of the course.

And that’s us that that is whether it’s the little thing or it’s the big thing.

We’re doing it for a reason and the reason is our kids full stop strong start to the next tape.

It’s a good, powerful, deep classic song.

So I’ll go next.

All right, top of my list, this is a song called Steak Night at the Prairie Rose by Silverada.

They’re formerly known as Mike and the Moonpies.

I was able to see them out in LA last year.

So Steak Night at the Prairie Rose, the writer is reminiscing on these moments that he had with his now late father, where they would go to the local, whatever the Prairie Rose is, a restaurant, a bar, listen to the band, and his dad would get a beer, he’d get a Coke, and just thinking back on that time, kind of a simple moment that they would share together.

I think there’s lots of opportunities as a father.

You might not even know what they are that might create a memory for your kid.

So the memory I remember from my own dad, on Wednesday nights, I had baseball practice, and it was our tradition to go to Carl’s Jr.

Might be known as Hardy’s in your area.

Yes, it is Hardy’s in our area, if it’s open.

A lot of them have closed.

I know that Carl’s Jr.

is a big California thing, but it’s not as big out here.

Yeah, it’s a different kind of Hardy, not the middle finger, Hardy, spelled differently.

Carl’s Jr., we have Western Bacon Cheeseburger together, and I would always really look forward to that.

I’m not sure if he even remembers it, but for some reason, it’s a strong image in my mind, something I would look forward to.

That was something we shared together.

So I hear this song, Steak Night at the Prairie Rose, and I’m thinking, what other traditions can I establish with my kids, even if it’s just something really simple, like going to an ice cream shop or their favorite restaurant or whatever?

Yeah.

The other cool thing about this song, it was also about there’s those couple of lines in there towards the end where the dad gives his son something to aspire to.

He’s like, you’re going to be up there singing to us someday.

Showing him that he has that belief in him.

Yeah, that’s true.

All right.

Well, the one I’ve got to start us off is a song by Gary Allan called Tough Little Boys.

And the reason I chose to lead with this one is because the message of this song talks about, just doesn’t matter how big and bad you are.

When you’re holding a little girl or a little boy, doesn’t matter, modeler, newborn.

They should start with newborn, I guess, because that’s where they start.

You’re holding a little baby in your arms, and you know that that is part of you.

You are just reduced to something that is small as they are.

Not small in the physical sense, but you realize that the world is just so much bigger than you when you’re holding a little baby in your arms.

So that’s why I chose to lead off with this one, because this song is like the guy equalizer.

It just brings us down to the level of little ones.

I hadn’t heard this one before, so this is comes from the era, I think that you’re helping me get some more extra keys in.

Yeah, this is.

So yeah, it was a good one.

I like how it describes the progression for a man who starts as a tough little boy, like I’m not going to cry to becoming a little bit more emotional once you have your kids and having a little bit more going on in your head and your heart when you add a kid to the mix.

And you talk about a little bit more going on.

So if you watch the video to this song, it even goes to a separate level because the video to this song focuses on service members.

I don’t know if they’re army or marines, could be both, but it shows them in different parade formations or it shows them embracing each other, kind of, I think, to signify like maybe the loss of a comrade.

So it’s not just about fatherhood reducing you to a more simple state.

It’s just sometimes about how anything that you care about deeply can sometimes ground you.

Pulling on the hardstrings in many different ways.

Yeah, a little bit.

I feel like I, since having kids, any kid’s movie becomes more emotional anytime there’s like a scene or part of the story is about a relationship between a father and his kids.

It just get a little more choked up than I.

You do notice it a little different.

I was like cooking dinner and watching, half watching the end of Toy Story 4.

And I’m like, what’s going on, man?

This is Toy Story 4 and I’m starting to lose it in the kitchen.

Come on.

My kids are turning around like, what’s wrong with you?

Speaking of pulling on the heartstrings, my next song is Even Though I’m Leaving by Luke Combs.

This one starts off with a verse about a kid being afraid of monsters under his bed and his dad comforting him and kind of describing how even if I’m not in the room, my spirit is there with you.

I’m always kind of the same kind of theme as that.

That’s my job for Conway Twitty.

You have the foundation of your dad kind of propping you up if things get scary.

And then each verse kind of progresses through the life.

It’s about a kid who’s going off to serve in the military overseas and being afraid of what’s going to happen there.

And his dad kind of giving him a little pep talk.

And then at the end, it’s his father is on his deathbed and saying, even though I’m leaving, you’ll have my spirit with you.

So I think it’s a beautiful song and always kind of gets me.

Makes you think about your mortality or mortality in general, my own parents getting a little bit older and then thinking about myself getting a little bit older, what’s waiting for us in the future.

It’ll hit you wherever you’re at in life.

I think there’s something for everyone in a song like this.

I really cannot add much to that.

I think that was a very succinct description of a lot of the things I feel when I hear that one as well.

I’m going to go back to the Heartstrings a little bit.

This one’s a little bit older as well.

You may not have heard this one either, but it’s called Daddy’s Hands by the late Holly Dunn.

I had not heard that one either, you’re right.

So you’re increasing my repertoire of 80s and 90s country songs, as we imagined would happen.

This song is just all-encompassing because it talks about all the different things that her daddy’s hands can do.

Show love, show affection, show positive attitude, but then also show discipline, just show how multifaceted we as fathers have to be with the tools that we have at our disposal.

In this case, it’s his hands that start off holding mom a tight and showing her the love that he carries in, I’m just like, carries her around.

It makes me think about, since I have a lot of little kids around me now, holding hands is a very common way for them to show affection.

At the playground, they’re holding hands with each other.

I was even at T-ball practice where I’m a coach, and I was giving them a little speech or something.

All of a sudden, someone’s holding my hand and I look down, and it’s just some random player just decided to hold my hand while I was talking to them.

I was like, I’m not your dad, what are you doing?

I think it’s just, it’s programmed or something.

They want to hold some grown-up’s hand.

Right now, when we’re crossing the street in LA, I still make my kids hold my hand when I cross the street because it’s a little dangerous.

And I realized that those days are numbered, where they’re going to be holding my hand.

So when we are crossing the street, I try to be present and think about how small their hand is right now because they’re growing so fast.

They are.

It’s like a precious little moment.

So here’s a funny story for you too.

Oftentimes, when Kate and I go to the grocery store in the parking lot, I will still grab her hand.

I’ll just reach back to her and I’ll hold my hand out and she’ll reach up and grab it.

And it’s for that exact same reason.

They’re growing so fast and I just love the feel of, okay, come on, I got you.

I am escorting you to safety across the parking lot.

So it doesn’t go away is what I’m trying to say.

I know, I got some tough little boys in my house, so they’re already slapping my hand away.

So the next one on my list is The Dollar by Jamey Johnson.

This one I think is for the working dads especially, sharing the simple fighting wisdom that kids can offer you sometimes.

So it’s about a dad who’s leaving to go to work or his kid is asking, if dad can’t play with me today because he has to leave to earn money, how much can I pay him to stay here and take me fishing?

That’s a clever insight into how kids think, but also a little bit painful because I think we’re always making that decision about how we spend our time.

You always worry about having regrets for spending too much time in the office versus time at home.

But I feel that even in my role, sometimes Kim has told me that she’ll feel a little bit guilty about spending late nights at the office or being away a lot, but I think she’s very intentional when she is here with the boys that she’s really focused on them.

Since I’m at home, I have lots of opportunities for spending time with them and having little moments, but I don’t always take those opportunities.

So just the other day, my oldest really wanted to play with me and I had all this laundry to fold.

And so I had to make that choice, like, am I gonna not fold the laundry and play with them, or am I gonna get my job done here and delay playing with them?

Yeah, that is so hard.

So often, you know, I can just think of a bazillion times when you’re in the middle of doing something and they come up to you and can I blank?

And you know the answer should be yes, but that laundry doesn’t fold itself.

Dinner doesn’t cook itself.

And sometimes it is hard to find that balance there.

I agree 100%.

Yeah, so this song, it’s good for kind of resetting your perspective.

And it’s a little bit painful when you’re thinking about a poor little kid taking money out of their piggy bank and trying to buy dad’s time.

I think the key that we have to remember is that it’s not that the dad doesn’t want to.

It’s just that he is, because there’s a lot of dads that just don’t want to, and they’re not even engaged enough that the kid even wants to spend time with them in the first place.

Yeah, good point.

And I think that’s what’s important about this song is you know they have a good relationship, the kid just wants more.

And you can’t blame the child for that because what child doesn’t want more of something?

You know, more popsicles, more candy, but I just wanted to make that little point that the dad is involved.

At least that’s my take on it every time I’ve always heard it.

Finally, change gears here a little bit.

Not gonna tug on our heartstrings so much, but another, you know, when I’m using air quotes, older song here that Dave may not have heard of by a band that has probably just been reduced to the casino circuit by now, because I haven’t heard them put out anything new for a long time.

But the song is called Front Porch Looking In by Lone Star.

The view I love the most Is my front porch looking in This song, when it came out, even though I don’t have a carrot top, you know, or a cute little blue-eyed blonde with shoes on wrong, I do have the most beautiful girl holding my kids when I do watch them.

And that’s what this song is about.

This song is about the guy who he talks about traveling a long way away.

So, you know, for all I know, it could be a biographical anthem.

I don’t know.

But he gets back home and he just sees the chaos that is his life.

And he loves it because it’s his.

And it’s just, it’s a cute playful little song, but it has a great message where he just, it just talks about how he’s been all around and he sees all these different things around the world.

But the only thing that really puts a true smile on his face is just seeing his little kid running around with a sippy cup.

Yeah, I really like the image that the song paints there on the front porch.

It makes me think like I need to very consistently find times to kind of step back and savor the view wherever I am, the view from the couch or the view in the front yard or the view walking home from school.

And man, yeah, Lone Star, I don’t know the last time I thought about Lone Star, but I feel like back in, back when I was in high school or something, like they were really, really popular because that’s when I wasn’t listening to a lot of country music.

And so it seemed like that was what was on the radio or that’s what people, that was the band people were talking about.

I mean, they had a really good run there for a while.

Yeah, well, I’ll check the casino circuit.

I do love, I do love a good casino.

Yeah, you tried to liven things up here, but I like sad country songs, Mick.

So I’m sorry.

Yes, you do.

I have to slow things down again.

All right, all right.

So Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore by Chris Stapleton.

Don’t pray.

That’ll slow it down.

Yeah, so yeah, way, pump the brakes, slam on the brakes, actually.

But a good song.

Yeah, I think this is a great song.

I think it’s really cleverly written.

You kind of find out at the end why daddy doesn’t pray anymore.

But really, to me, this means the kid is reminiscing again on times he’s seen his dad or heard his dad pray for him or pray for them, pray for the family.

And that’s a reminder for me personally to be persistent in thinking about and praying for my own kids.

And then also a reminder too that kids are always watching you, watching your habits, and they can pull a lot of very simple, meaningful things from watching what you do and what you value and what you think is important.

Fire this one up on your streaming service of choice and get into your feels.

Yeah, it’ll definitely make you feel some things.

Yes, good, solid song.

I didn’t realize I hadn’t heard this song for a while, so I was just watching the video on YouTube the last couple of days just to refresh myself with it.

But apparently, it is starting to become a funeral anthem for a lot of people.

I can see that.

Right, exactly.

It completely makes sense, but a lot of people are playing the song for their fathers.

You mentioned something just a few minutes ago about this song, How Kids Are Always Learning From Us, which is the perfect segue into my next song by Rodney Atkins, and it’s called Watching You.

He said, I’ve been watching you.

I have loved this song for a multitude of reasons for ever since the first time I heard it, to be quite honest.

It just hits all the right notes for me because I know just deep down, the kids are watching you and they just pick stuff up.

Half hour ago when we were talking about you meeting Luke, you were saying, oh yeah, he’s got some mannerisms.

I can tell you’re Mick’s son.

They pick stuff up.

I always like to joke that kids learn just as much by osmosis as they learn from textbooks.

My favorite line in this song is when the dad goes into the barn and drops to the knees and starts talking to his supervisor upstairs and he says, Lord, please help me, help my stupid self.

Dave, I cannot tell you how many times when I have, now full disclosure, I am Catholic.

So, and I do go to church regularly, but I have used that exact line many times when I have been in church, just having a little conversation with my supervisor and just like, okay, help me, help me here because I did not do this well or I need help because I got this other thing coming.

I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to do well, but that line is really the biggest reason that I like this song.

Yeah, that’s really good insight because part of the song is kind of intimidating to me when I’m thinking about how much my kids are watching me and picking up from me, because it’s like, wow, I really have to have my act together.

And if I don’t, if I slip up, they’re going to notice and they’re going to carry that on.

They’re going to use my bad example more than my good example.

But you’re right, sometimes we need a little bit of help and it’s not on us to be perfect because we’re not perfect.

So on to my final pick and this and my personal humble opinion is the perfect dad song Drive for Daddy Gene by Alan Jackson.

Here’s Jackson.

Just a little valley by the river where we’d ride, but I was high on mountain, so I think this one just…

It’s upbeat yet touching.

I think it tells this great story about connection with your father or with your kids by painting this indelible image of dad letting you drive the car or drive the boat.

And I think I can always relate with that feeling of excitement and kind of adventure and dad kind of leading you on to that new grown up responsibility.

And yeah, this one just just always kind of gives me chills.

It fires me up.

It does everything for me.

So thanks.

Thanks AJ.

I’ve always liked this song.

Alan Jackson has never been like my super duper most favorite.

I like I like him.

He’s got some songs that I really like this being one of them.

This song.

The reason that it hits me is this song is very, it’s very visual in my in my head when I hear it.

The stripe was white.

I think about the times when like, you know, I was learning to drive on the gravel road around the farm.

Little simple things like that.

Just such vivid memories of these first shared experiences.

Yeah, that’s what good songs do.

They take something from one sense and they transfer it to another sense.

And that’s hard to do.

But when you have an artist that can do it, whether that artist be the singer or the songwriter, yeah.

For my last song, I’m going to share one of my favorite songs by one of the, you could say arguably top five country music artists in the history of country music.

And that is George Strait.

George Strait’s Love Without End, Amen, is probably one of the best songs that he has ever released in my opinion.

It is just such a simple song with three different verses talking about a journey through life and how it relates to fatherhood.

The first verse, he’s talking about when he was a little boy.

The second verse, he talks about being a father.

And then the next one, last verse, he talks about passing away and going to the early gates.

I think it just hits all the notes.

It’s simple, like a lot of George’s songs are, but it’s just that his voice just always seems to carry off so well.

Yeah, it’s a wonderful song, man.

I love that the message of the song to me is like about unconditional love.

And I think that’s the ultimate goal of parenting for me.

Like, can I get to a place where my kids understand that my love is unconditional for them to always be there for them?

I think this song kind of communicates that really well.

Yeah, and I have to admit, I have used the, let me tell you a secret line on my kids before.

I don’t know if it works.

Did you sing it?

Oh, good gosh, no, I know it definitely wouldn’t work because I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

I have done that before when we’ve tried, you’re always trying to look for different ways you can break through when you’re trying to get a point across.

And I’ve been like, hey, I’ll tell you a secret.

And then that catches them and that’s a little bit different kind of a hook.

That one definitely could have been number one, but I wanted to end with it because I think it’s just perfect.

Yeah, that’s a good strong anchor for our Father’s Day mixtape.

Absolutely.

So any closing comments before we tell everybody where they can go and listen to this mixtape other than here?

I don’t think so, but yeah, we’ll have this playlist available on Spotify.

So I hope you enjoyed it and I hope that you will fire that playlist up on Spotify in the lead up to Father’s Day so you can get in your feels or just get in the mood for a nice hopefully relaxing day with your family.

Absolutely.

And when you want to relax, you can always go to our website and find some of our backup episodes.

If you need to get caught up, that is countrymusictads.com.

You can always send us an email at countrymusictads.gmail.com.

We always love to hear feedback.

If you have any show ideas, just send them our way.

Got the socials going, Instagram and Facebook.

Dave just put together a new little reel that we think, I don’t know if it’s going to eclipse the hay bale lifting state trooper, but I think this one’s hilarious.

I don’t know if anything ever will.

It’s my best work.

That thing’s over 100,000 now.

That’s right.

Did you know that?

Yeah.

I check frequently.

It’s one of my crowning achievements, that reel.

He put together one about a little kid in a goat rope and rodeo that I think is hilarious personally.

But that’s on Instagram at countrymusictads.

As always, thank you for spending a little time out of your day with us.

We appreciate you.

Happy Father’s Day.

Which I saw a groundhog today.

But he wasn’t in the garden.

But he was too fast before I could go get my tool.

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