I remember sitting like this next to my father as a boy and later as a young man. I can see it in your eyes, deep inside you want to cry

I can see you’re sad, even when you smile, even when you laugh …but I’m trying to give you the life that I never had It is clear that the song resonates with him, and listening along this time, I realize it is about a father’s deep love for his child. The guitar riff at the end of the song lifts me. Yet perhaps it would have been better if I had hit him, rather then to hold onto the pain of betrayal and turn it back on him for so many years. If he ever saw him again he’d probably knock him out His words feel raw and true to me.Īs we listen I think about how I never wanted to punch my own father as in Eminem’s lyrics:Ĭause he just hates him so bad that he blocks him out I cringe at some of the harsh language, and wonder if I am remiss to even allow Liam to listen, but I am struck by Eminem’s honesty, and by how he mixed Aerosmith’s ‘Dream On’ into his poem. What bothers him all comes out, when he talks about He ramps up the volume as we listen to Eminem’s ‘Sing for the Moment.’ I am moved by the song and wonder if it is Liam’s way to say he wants to understand something of who I am, how my father leaving when I was a boy affected me. Later, when Liam returns from the fair he asks me if I want to go sit in Ann’s new car and listen to music. The sky is now pastel pink, then purplish gray as it turns to dusk. Behind them a group of girls in short shorts and snug shirts, all holding cell phones with different colored cases. Three tall skinny guys walking awkwardly in white tees and gym shorts. A clutch of long-hairs dressed in black on skateboards. Patches of kids are walking to the fair, a group of four boys all wearing short sleeve plaid shirts in various colors and patterns. I’m not sure why, but the song always gets to me, something beyond the lyrics, his plaintive voice, a sadness embodied there. Neil Young singing ‘After the Gold Rush’. I keep driving because the music is good on the radio.

Gredler’ some of them call out, bouncing, excited at being who they are. I drop him off at the CVS parking lot, a group of girls and boys waiting. His present for his fourteenth birthday, the one he bothered us about for months prior. He comes down in baggy shorts and a tight black tee, a heavy silver chain with crucifix around his neck. When he is finished showering, we can smell cologne wafting down the stairs. This a recent annoyance for us-he cranks up the volume without concern for what we might be doing. The barber charges a dollar each for those.Īt home he carries his radio into the bathroom and blasts rap music while he showers. After a while, Liam ambles up to us, hair very short, three stripes cut into one side. The sun is low, the sky a pale mottled blue, on the horizon smudges of mauve and yellow. He is getting his hair cut before going to the local fair.

A nn and I are sitting outside a little pizza place waiting for our son, Liam, to join us.

Sing for the moment lyrics