Dan Fogelberg's song, "Leader of the Band," made it to Number One on the Adult Contemporary charts in March of 1982, and is on my personal short-list of songs that I will always turn up and listen to if I stumble across it on the radio.
It was written and sung as a tribute to Fogelberg's father, and is certainly not meant to be a spiritual analogy of any sort...but the feeling of the music and certain phrases in the lyric speak to my heart of something far deeper than flesh and blood.
"...a cabinet maker's son, his hands were meant for different work and his heart was known to none."
"He left his own and went his lone and solitary way. And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay."
"...a thundering velvet hand. His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand."
"I thank you for the kindness, and the times when you got tough. And, Papa, I don't think I said 'I love you' near enough."
"His blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul. My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man..."
Truth is...I am a living legacy to the Leader of the Band.
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