But You Love Me, Daddy

I was all of five years old when my Dad first sang that immortal classic, But you love me, Daddy, to me. We were walking home from school or church, I forget which, when just like that, he began to sing the song.

I didn’t hear Jim Reeves sing it in his deep baritone until many years later. And so for me, the song was Dad’s love song to me.

In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed Dad had written the words and composed the tune. Just for me.

Of course, even back then I was a trifle suspicious. For one, the first line, ‘Your five year old face is a dirty disgrace’ could never be true. Even if I managed to get it dirty, Mum would have scrubbed my face clean. Squeaky clean. She would never have allowed her kids to go around looking scruffy and untidy. So that was the first dead giveaway.

Secondly, I didn’t have any toys at all, except a cheap doll, hollow inside and made out of a single sheet of plastic, upon whose upper lip my older brother had drawn a moustache. And of course, I spoke to her (which little girl doesn’t?), but not loud enough to disturb anyone.

And then the evidence kept piling up.

I had never pulled my sister’s ponytail and made her wail. Why would I? I was the sister myself.

Nor had Dad ever debarred us from eating cookies.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that I was five years old, the age mentioned in the song. What mattered was that the refrain of the song was perfectly and unmistakably true.

But you love me, Daddy.

One simple statement of protest that stated a simple truth.

In the face of that simple statement, all my imperfections didn’t matter. No matter how naughty or disobedient I was, my Daddy loved me.

That was the simple, immutable truth. The rest were just details.

Under the benign shade of that truth, I flourished.



The comfort of that relationship continued for years, even though I ceased to be five years old soon enough. It still continues, and in a world that has changed so drastically from the simple world of my childhood, the knowledge that that relationship thrives still brings comfort and fills me with joy and warmth.

Daddies and daughters, there will always be a special warmth in that relationship.

Recently as I was putting La Niña to bed, I suddenly recalled the strains of the song. Just like that. Unbeckoned. It came to me.

I smiled at the memory, and that was enough. It was as if the floodgates were released.

I sang the whole song and she, my little five-year-old daughter, listened with rapt attention, while beaming from ear to ear. As if her own Dadda were expressing his love for her through song.

When it was over, she requested an encore. And then another.

When the second encore was done, she said nothing. Her heart, it seemed, was too full for speech. She lay on the pillow, eyes closed, traces of the smile still on her lips. And then she opened her eyes again.

“Mamma,” she said. “Can Dadda sing this song?”

“I don’t think so, sweets,” I said. I wished I didn’t have to say it and break her little heart, but I had to. The Husband isn’t one to burst into song. It was better to let her know now than wait for her to ask him to sing it and suffer disappointment.

“Will you teach him the song then?” she asked. I nodded and smiled.

And Dadda’s little darling closed her eyes, delighting in the love of the man who had made her heart swell because he loved her, no matter what.



El Niño was already asleep. The house was quiet. The Husband was not yet back from work.



I took the opportunity to go back decades to the streets of my childhood and step in line with a five-year-old girl and her Daddy, as he sang his song of love to her. As I looked on, he finished his song, and she gambolled along.

Ah! The joy of knowing you are loved!



Thank you, Daddy.



And Jim, thank you too.







I am linking this entry to the Moonshine Grid, hosted at Yeah Write.