Friday on My Mind: Dads!

It’s time again for Friday on My Mind, our weekly blog post, where we look at music videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News.

Father’s Day is this Sunday June 16th. The very first Father’s Day took place back on June 17, 1910, after a successful campaign by Sonora Dodd to recognize the role of male parents with a celebration similar to Mother’s Day, and at that time there was a surplus of overbearing cologne and bad ties in the country. A June date was decided on since Sonora Dodd’s father, William Smart, was born during that month and let's face it... name another June holiday if you can. Nothing right? While the holiday started to spread, many men thought that celebrating Father’s Day with flowers and gifts was too commercial and not manly enough. During the 1920s and 1930s, there were campaigns to consolidate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day into Parents’ Day – that never caught on because scraping holidays wasn't manly enough. If we could torch them with flame throwers, THEN we'd be on to something. It's been reported that Americans spend over $1 billion annually on Father’s Day presents with the total spending for this day being estimated at around $12.7 billion. Seriously, useless holidays are probably helping to keep our entire economy a float. Think about Valentine’s Day for a second... uh, a day to tell people you love them through the act of buying them things a few months after buying them other things for Christmas. And then an additional three months later, you have Mother's Day. God forbid a birthday falls in there somewhere. Thank God Flag Day never really took off. And Happy Flag Day by the way!

KEXP has its 8th Annual Kids Dance Party this Sunday! Hopefully, we’ll see you and your family out at the EMP for that celebration. Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue Our first Father related song is from Johnny Cash. “A Boy Named Sue” was penned by the well-loved children’s author and poet, Shel Silverstein. It goes out to every man out there with a girl's name (I'm looking at you Sally). http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WOHPuY88Ry4 James Brown - Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag From 1965, our next song choice is "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown. Here is a video of America's #1 Godfather of Soul performing the song on the music television program Shindig! back in the 60's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqDB2spyG0 Violent Femmes - Gone Daddy Gone Our third and final song choice this week is "Gone Daddy Gone" by Violent Femmes from their 1983 self titled debut. This song is not actually about a real "dad", but more about the phrase "gone daddy". The real "Dad" connection of this song is that it's super catchy and most of the Dads that I know were drinking to this record WAY before they had kids. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekL7o8BQkZM