{"id":4608,"date":"2008-06-15T21:58:45","date_gmt":"2008-06-16T01:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=4608"},"modified":"2008-06-16T00:09:23","modified_gmt":"2008-06-16T04:09:23","slug":"the-leader-of-the-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/06\/the-leader-of-the-band\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leader of the Band"},"content":{"rendered":"

A song that is synonymous for me with Father’s day is Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band<\/a><\/em>. Fogelberg was a king of the sappy 1970 and 1980-era love ballads, with \u00c3\u00bcber cheesy-hits like Longer<\/em>, but Leader of the Band<\/em> was different (at least for me). It was a tribute that came off as a little more sincere and a little less fluffy than Fogelberg’s standard fare. Growing up my dad used to listen to it often, remembering his own father who died in the mid-eighties. When Fogelberg passed away last December, my father and I exchanged emails reminiscing about both the song and my grandpa. While it’s not an overtly religious song, it still strikes a spiritual chord in me (I guess you could add it to my list<\/a>). It makes me think of family, home, growing up, and my own dad — the Leader of the Band. <\/p>\n

An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker’s son
\nHis hands were meant for different work
\nAnd his heart was known to none
\nHe left his home and went his lone and solitary way
\nAnd he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay<\/p>\n

A quiet man of music, denied a simpler fate
\nHe tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn’t wait
\nHe earned his love through discipline: a thundering, velvet hand
\nHis gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand.<\/p>\n

The Leader Of The Band is tired and his eyes are growing old
\nBut his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
\nMy life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
\nI’m just a living legacy to the Leader Of The Band<\/p>\n

My brothers’ lives were different for they heard another call
\nOne went to Chicago and the other to St. Paul
\nAnd I’m in Colorado when I’m not in some hotel
\nLiving out this life I’ve chose and have come to know so well<\/p>\n

I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
\nI thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
\nI thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
\nAnd, papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough <\/p>\n

The Leader Of The Band is tired and his eyes are growing old
\nBut his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
\nMy life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
\nI’m just a living legacy to the Leader Of The Band <\/p>\n

I am the living legacy to Leader Of The Band<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A song that is synonymous for me with Father’s day is Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}