Reconsider Me: The Love Songs
'In a sense, a father is a daughter’s true love. No matter what circumstances come into our lives to cloud the purity of that love, a daughter cannot help but feel the echo of her father whenever her heart swells with love. At least this has been true for me. My father and I had a strange and sometimes estranged relationship throughout my life and until the end of his; but despite the awkwardness and the pain we sometimes shared in each other’s company, his love for me and mine for him was unwavering and unquestionable.Lucky (or unlucky at times) for me, his love songs were the tangible echoes of his capacity to love even when I could not be near him. I can recall as a young girl of 6 or 7 sitting in my mother’s rocking chair hugging the vinyl album cover to Excitable Boy as "Accidentally, Like a Martyr" and "Tenderness on the Block" brought streams of tears to my eyes. Though life’s hard knocks might have made it impossible for my father to always be present and by my side, the sweet melancholy of his lyrics and his voice consoled me and reassured me that wherever he was and whatever he was doing, his love could travel through space and time.'-Ariel Zevon