Daddy's Hands

I wrote “Daddy’s Hands” for my father, Phillip Dunn, and for the kind of man I came to understand more fully as I got older.

He spent most of his working life doing hard, physical work with his hands, especially building fences. Those hands carried the evidence of that life - calluses, cuts, wear, and years of doing whatever needed to be done. But they also represented the things he taught me without ever making a speech about them: keep your word, do a job the best you can, help people when you can, and take pride in honest work.

I didn’t make music while my father was alive. That came later. In some ways, writing this song was my way of finally connecting the life he lived with the life I eventually found for myself.

“Daddy’s Hands” isn’t meant to make him larger than life. He was a humble man. It’s simply a song about what I saw in those hands, what they taught me, and what I understand now that I couldn’t fully understand then.

I released it on September 13, the day that would have been his 100th birthday.