“Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)”
Merle Haggard
Written by Merle Haggard
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
November 20 – November 27, 1971
I promise you I haven’t gone soft. These records really are this good, and so many of them have been lost to history after being deemed ineffective gold recurrents by the powers that be.
Let’s take a moment here to appreciate what Merle Haggard has done.
This is a song about a blind man and a deaf woman leading a musical family band that tours the road coast to coast.
It’s a fanciful yarn that still reveals some relevant truth, one of which is spectacularly ahead of its time: recognizing that disabled people are best supported by tapping into their assets and strengths instead of defining them by their deficits.
It’s 2025 and we’re still trying to make that the norm in education. God bless Merle Haggard for writing such beautifully realized characters that help us to see some beauty where we might have only seen a disability.
“Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)” gets an A.
Every No. 1 Single of the Seventies
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It’s a good message song but it does miss a bit something for me to put into the “great” category. Still so much better than what we currently are receiving. This would be a “B+” for me.
Hag was always good at painting pictures with his music. The album from which this came, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT A SONG, if full of good stories, most of which never made it to radio. I consider “They’re Tearin’ The Labor Camps Down” to be the best song on the album but relatively few have heard it.
“Daddy Frank” is an A-
I can’t imagine a better example of profound improvement between an artist’s #1 hits–comparing this to Haggard’s last chart-topper–in the genre’s history! I’d heard this song playing on obscure country oldies shows over the years but this was the first time I really listened closely and absorbed the considerable storytelling. I can’t get over how much more lyrical content was packed into these 70s story songs than what we get nowadays, and it helps us really get to know all the characters that populate this story. Haggard was indeed ahead of his time in normalizing the disabled and showcasing their power when they lean into their strengths. It’s a powerful three minutes.
Grade: A
The difference for me between the last two Alan Jackson chart toppers also comes to mind… from “Where I Come From” (a song I absolutely abhor…. I didn’t chime in on that discussion, but I did interpret that last verse as transphobic)to “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” is a staggering change.
Out of curiosity, was it the transphobic line that drove your abhorrence of “Where I Come From” or was there more to it than that?
Honestly, that was just the last straw. I’ve always found it to be so annoying and stupid (and not in a fun way).
I found this on a cheap compilation CD about 20 years ago and was genuinely surprised by the subject matter. My oldest uncle is deaf and has cerebral palsy, and my mom’s frustration with lack of proper education for him led her to a nearly 35-year career as a special ed teacher (and also, I would assume, prepared her for the challenges of raising me, someone who is on the autism spectrum). I work in a nursing home and I’ve dealt with deaf and blind residents, not to mention how early-onset dementia rendered my stepdad blind well before his death.
This song is fantastically ahead of its time in having fully realized disabled characters who aren’t limited or defined by their disabilities and still able to have fulfilling lives. I’d say it’s next to “In My Next Life”, another song I discovered through this blog, as my favorite Haggard cut.