My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]

John Burnside
About This Quote

John Hartford, the great American songwriter and musician, wrote “My Father Was One of Those Men” as a tribute to his father, who was an alcoholic. The song is about the struggle between faith and redemption. The narrative describes how the father’s drinking ruined his life and family, and led to his eventual suicide. The line about sitting and feeling the “simmer” captures how he used to feel sitting in his home: And my father would sit and drink himself to death And all around me I’d see things go wrong So I sat and watched him fall apart And sit and watched him fall apart ____ You can hear his sorrow in the melody.

In this quote by John Hartford, he talks of how his father used to sit in a room and you would have been able to tell that there was something brewing just below the surface. There was something that could break loose at any moment. He was an alcoholic who had a lot of problems getting help for himself, but he always insisted on getting help for his son.

He would sit down with him after a fight and say things like, "Things will be alright." You can hear him saying those words as if he were trying to convince himself of their truth. And so John followed him as he fell apart. This is a powerful quote because it shows that one of the best ways of learning from your past is by using it as an opportunity to improve.

Somewhere there is a person who has been through some really terrible things that they can learn from if they don't let those situations define them or bring them down. Sometimes all you need to do is listen with an open heart and make it clear that you care about them enough to listen with compassion on their journey through life's ups and downs. This quote also raises the question on what we make our lives about.

What makes our lives better? What makes our lives worth living? If we are willing to make sacrifices in order to live fully, then we must believe in our ability to overcome incredible odds. We must believe that we can rise every time we fall because there is someone out there who has gone through much worse than us who has risen far beyond our expectations. There is always strength in numbers; it's not possible for one person alone to move mountains; but for many people working together, it's possible for us all to create change in this world around us instead of letting everything be taken over by seemingly

Source: A Lie About My Father: A Memoir

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  3. My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]
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