The Playlist
On November 12th 2020, I lost my dad to the bitch that is cancer. Exactly 5 years ago today. 5 years, crikey! He was 62, a Hugh Grant lookalike (god, did he love that) and he was deeply unapologetic. He wasn’t a musician in a practical sense (my mum bought him a drum kit that he literally never touched), but he was a musician in his soul. The last message I ever received from him was a link to a Jeff Buckley track, Grace. He died only a few days after that. In the months leading up to his death, he started putting together a playlist for me and my three siblings. He called it Ophelia’s Education.
On it is everything from Led Zeppelin to Art Tatum, Peter Gabriel to the Foo Fighters, George Michael to Madonna, Steely Dan, The Beatles…tons of Bowie of course, with sprinklings of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The list goes on for 54 tracks - 5hrs 42 mins to be precise. It’s eclectic, raw, vibrant and very ‘main character’ vibe. My dad made a point of saying this was not necessarily his favourite music - it was simply music that meant something. It was a curated curriculum designed to prepare us for the turbulent realities of the world. It’s an education of the soul.
It wasn't a lesson on music, it was a lesson on life. The pain of heartbreak, the need for rebellion, and the importance of reflection. I’ve turned to this playlist when I’ve struggled to find answers and when I so desperately wanted to hear his voice again. You know when you could just really do with some advice from a parent - well, this playlist is all we’ve got left from dad, and if we listen carefully enough, the answers are all there.
I sometimes look back at messages we exchanged, and this one from him will stay with me forever:
“I’ve always thought that for you to unlock your real potential you need to feel a little more about what you do and express yourself with courage. You can’t commit your life just to get someone else’s notes right. That makes you a machine. I don’t want to watch you with my fingers crossed hoping you get all the notes right. I want to watch you express yourself whether the music is perfect or not. It’s way harder than practicing of course, but performance is precisely that. The transference of human emotion through expression”.
What I’ve learnt from my dad’s life is that humans are complicated. He was far from perfect. But despite the mistakes he made along the way, he loved, made deeply inappropriate jokes to waiters in restaurants, and declared that his body just be ‘thrown in a skip’ when he dies. His sense of humour was macabre, dry, inappropriate, but so him.
Dad, if you are out there somewhere (preferably not in a skip) and you are watching us, I hope we are making you proud.
Love, the kids x
