MY FATHER’S SONG
A deeply personal new number from Mind The Trams asks what remains of a father when only memories are left
There are some conversations between fathers and sons that never quite happen.
Not because there is nothing to say.
Quite the opposite.
Perhaps there is simply too much.
“My Father’s Song,” from Gabriel Undici’s developing Mind The Trams Accrington musical, steps away from the bustle of Lockwood’s Bakery, crowded trams and ballroom laughter for something altogether quieter.
It is a song about a father.
But perhaps more importantly, it is about a son trying to understand him.
THE MEN WHO DIDN’T ALWAYS SAY IT
Lancashire in the years before the Second World War was not particularly famous for grand declarations of affection.
Men worked.
They provided.
They repaired things.
They stood at the bar, read the paper, complained about the weather and occasionally offered a few carefully selected words which were expected to last you until Christmas.
Love was often expressed differently.
A hand quietly placed upon a shoulder.
Boots left drying beside the fire.
A few coins pushed across a table.
Someone waiting up until they heard the front door open.
Nobody called these things love.
They didn’t need to.
A FATHER REMEMBERED
My Father’s Song finds its emotion amongst those small details.
Rather than presenting an idealised portrait, the song remembers the contradictions that make a person real: strength alongside vulnerability, silence beside affection, disagreements which once seemed terribly important and ordinary moments which, years later, become priceless.
That restraint places the song naturally within Mind The Trams.
The developing Accrington musical has increasingly found its voice not through great historical figures, but through the people who rarely appeared in history books at all.
Bakery girls.
Mill workers.
Postmen.
Young men waiting for their futures to begin.
Mothers.
Fathers.
People whose lives mattered enormously to the handful of people who loved them.
“I UNDERSTAND YOU BETTER NOW”
Perhaps one of life’s crueller tricks is that we sometimes begin to understand our parents properly only when we have grown old enough to recognise ourselves in them.
The things that once irritated us become familiar.
A phrase escapes our mouth and suddenly belongs to somebody else.
We catch ourselves standing in the same way.
Telling the same terrible joke.
Worrying about the same insignificant things.
And for just a second they are there again.
That is the territory My Father’s Song occupies.
It isn’t simply grief.
It is recognition.
AN ACCRINGTON MUSICAL WITH MEMORY AT ITS HEART
Although Mind The Trams begins in Oswaldtwistle in 1939, its world stretches naturally through Accrington and the surrounding Lancashire communities.
Its songs increasingly resemble fragments of a collective memory — stories of friendship, courtship, work, family and lives interrupted by history.
My Father’s Song adds another voice to that collection.
A quieter one.
Because sometimes the most important person in your life doesn’t need a grand musical number.
Sometimes all they need is one song that finally says the things you never quite managed to say while they were sitting beside you.
And somewhere beneath all those words lies perhaps the simplest thought of all:
Dad, I understand you better now.
THE HERALD VERDICT
★★★★★
“FOR EVERY FATHER WHO SAID VERY LITTLE — AND SOMEHOW SAID EVERYTHING.”
Tender without becoming sentimental, My Father’s Song gives the developing Accrington musical one of its most universal moments: a son looking backwards and finally recognising the love hidden inside ordinary things.
FROM THE WORLD OF MIND THE TRAMS
An Accrington and Oswaldtwistle musical about love, friendship, family, community and the ordinary Lancashire lives history so easily forgets.
Gabriel Undici — Lancashire author, songwriter and creator of the Mind The Trams musical project.
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