Grief, and Nothing More’s Song “Fade In, Fade Out”

Folks, most of you know if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time that I am grieving my father’s passing last October at the age of eighty-six. Because of that, and because I am a musician anyway (always will be), I have been listening to songs differently.

One such song is Nothing More’s “Fade In, Fade Out.” (Link to main YouTube video is here.) It discusses, explicitly, the link between fathers and sons, so it’s not too much of a stretch to consider this dialogue from a father to a daughter as well.

“But why this song,” you ask? “And who is Nothing More?”

First, I’ll answer the second question. Nothing More is a rock group from the American Southwest. They skew more toward metal than anything, but they have various influences on their music. Their lead singer, Jonny Hawkins, started as their drummer/percussionist, but realized he needed to front the band instead. Their music has a lot of life, and speaks to many different emotions and states of being.

As to why this particular song? Because of some of the lyrics, combined with the power of the music, just speak to me in a way that I can’t quite understand, except by listening to this song, crying somewhat, and then listening to it again.

The song starts out with a grown son realizing his father has grown old. They speak, almost as if it’s their final conversation; the son listens as his father says (from lyrics):

Son, I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
When the grip leaves my hand
I know you won’t let me down

The father continues, telling his son to follow his heart, to never settle, to hold his head up, and to never run away from change. (If you look at the lyrics, which I found here, you’ll realize I’m telling this out of order. That’s OK. This is how it speaks to me.)

These next lyrics are essential to understanding “Fade In, Fade Out,” as far as I’m concerned:

(From a bit later in song)

When the morning comes and takes me
I promise I have taught you everything that you need
In the night you’ll dream of so many things
But find the ones that bring you life and you’ll find me

That’s where you’ll find me (repeated several times until the end)

The song ends on a huge crescendo, as another child is born, this to the son.**

To my mind, though, what matters most is the line about “find the (things) that bring you life, and you’ll find me.” The reason this matters so much to me is, the passions I, myself, have, are partly because of the passions my parents had. Dad loved music; so does my mother. Both of my parents were inveterate readers (and Mom still is); so am I, though I read some different things than they did (and Mom still does). The learning I took in, regarding morality and ethics and what’s truly important in life, I also took in from family influences.

So, the things that bring me life are music, words, and important relationships with friends and family. (My friends are my family, too. Just in a slightly different way. But I digress.)

Anyway, symbolically in this song, the son ends up with a child. I have no children, unless you count the workings of my mind and heart, as Michael and I were not blessed with any. (He was worth everything, though, and still is. You’ll know this if you read my blog for any length of time.) But overall, the point still matters: the oldest among us die, to make way for the new, but there is continuity between one generation and another.

In that sense, my father’s mother (who died when he was only eleven) has lived on, through him. In that sense, my maternal grandfather, who died when I was seven, has lived on, too (among others). Even though they couldn’t teach us directly, they did teach and impart values and such to my father and mother, who passed them on to me and my sibs.

So, in the parlance of “Fade in, Fade Out,” Dad watched me as I grew older (thus, faded in). He grew old and passed away (thus, faded out). But I haven’t forgotten what he taught me, the good, the bad, and the indifferent…and I never will.

What songs have mattered to you most, especially when you’ve been grieving? (All of us grieve something, mind you. That’s the parable Gautama Buddha gave, in a perhaps apocryphal story, when he sent a woman looking for someone without grief around the world. She couldn’t find anyone.) Tell me about ’em in the comments…and hey, if there are any other Nothing More fans out there, chime in, too. (That group deserves wider fame, methinks.)

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**There’s an acoustic version of “Fade In, Fade Out” available here that’s also well worth listening to…then again, anything Nothing More does is worth it, and I can say that about very few bands. (Disturbed, Nothing More, Linkin Park…that’s about it. I’d add a few earlier bands and singers to that, such as Phil Collins with and without Genesis, and Styx with Dennis DeYoung.)