Ok, folks, crank up your glurge meters or write this down for the father-daughter dance at the next wedding: Heartland’s “I Loved Her First”!! It’s another paean to the special love between a father and a daughter. But the creepiest part is that unlike the previous All-Time Glurge Champ “Butterfly Kisses”, this one is ambiguous throughout the first verse, in words and delivery, in terms of exactly what the relationship is between the narrator and the girl:
Look at the two of you dancing that way/Lost in the moment and each other’s face
So much in love you’re alone in this place/Like there’s nobody else in the world
I was enough for her not long ago/I was her number one
She told me so
And she still means the world to me
Just so you know
So be careful when you hold my girl
Time changes everything
Life must go on
And I’m not gonna stand in your way
But I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
Presumably, from the rest of the lyrcis, we can safely infer this song is addressed from the father to the boyfriend/groom now becoming central to his daughter’s life, right?
So to say “don’t forget, she’s my daughter and she’ll always have a place for me in her heart” seems to be pleading your own case too much, but at least makes logical sense.
But that’s not what the song says.
To say “And a place in my heart will always be hers” seems to imply either of two possibilities:
“No matter how much I, the father, come to love you, the boyfriend, I’ll still reserve a place in MY heart for her, you’ll never have me completely”
Too weird, eh?
or
“No matter what she does with you, I won’t stop loving her [lose the place in my heart]”.
That’s almost creepier because of the implication that rejecting his daughter for dating…and, ultimately, having sex with…someone else…has crossed his mind.
On the creep-out pedophila meter, Colin Raye’s "I think about you " is near the top for me. I get the premise of the song–every woman is sombody’s daughter, so you should treat them with respect, but the thoughts of eight year olds in that song does kind of worry me.
Oh, that’s another one where the first verse implies something other than father-daughter (I knew that construct sounded familiar!). I see a woman on a billboard, I think about you…oh, OK, he thinks of the attarctive woman in his life…it’s only later that you realize he is worried about his kid’s self-image and chances in the world.
Oh goodness–you all are overthinking it. “a place in my heart will always be hers” just means that he will always have a special place in his heart for his daughter! Period. No sex implied.
Dammit. I have to admit, I’d never heard “Butterfly Kisses.” Still haven’t. But I just read the lyrics and now I’m crying. I’m such a friggin’ sap. :mad:
Well, the phrasing isn’t all that elegant, I admit. But it moved both me and my husband when we heard it. Of course, we both heard it first on the way to drop our daughter off for her first year at college. So that accounts for a lot. I’d probably be making fun of it with the rest of you if it wasn’t for that.
The verse that most moved my husband was the last one, BTW:
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
Someday you might know what I’m going through
When a miracle smiles up at you
I loved her first
Made him think of when he first saw our daughter – who was three months premature – hooked up to wires and machines and ventilators… Kevin has always called her our miracle, so he nearly drove off the road when he heard that line.
By coincidence, Tim McGraw also has a new father-daughter song out – My Little Girl
For what it’s worth, I’m also very moved by parent-son glurgey songs (especially since our son left 2 years ago), patriotic/ military glurgey songs (our boy is in the Navy, as was my husband for 26 years), and glurgey songs about people who’ve been married a long time.
I’ve always hated the song “Butterfly Kisses” and all the related merchandising. primarily because I believe there is a section in The Joy of Sex on how to give butterfly kisses, and that is always the image that pops into my head. Didn’t any of the people connected to the song ever read that book?