4. My Father's Hat

THE STORY :

This song was inspired by a story that Baumi told to me one night in the parking lot of Barandov Studios in Prague.

Baumi (Karl Baumgartner) had gone to his car to get me a cassette tape of the soundtrack Life on a String that Pandora Films was producing or had just produced in China. It included a song which he explained to me in his lovely intense way (or at least this is how I remember his explanation) :

"there are these two armies which are marching, moving toward each other on this wide plain. And the master and his student (and/or son) are watching this impending battle from a hill overlooking the plain. The master is a master of singing and playing some sort of instrument, maybe an erhu. The scene ends with the master coming down and sitting in between the two armies and playing a song which ends the fighting. The master will die when the he breaks his 1000th string."

It was dark and after dinner which probably means we'd had a little something to drink. He loved the melody and challenged me to come up with some English lyrics to fit the melody (I'm looking for this). I also remember he was very excited about the band on the other side of the cassette, Madredeus. I think it was O Espíritu Da Paz. This is twenty years ago and he put the tape into the yellow walkman for me to hear. Baumi was in Prague producing Kusturica's Underground. I was just lucky to be there.

I remember commenting on his fingers which had some gnarly looking fingernails and he said this was a result of his habit of chewing on his fingers for many years. Resonated with me as I had not long before, living in NYC, started a serious finger-chewing habit that continues to some degree. I'm starting to see some of the same effect now and it reminds me, warmly, of Baumi. I only found out he had died in 2014 when I was preparing notes for this release.

Anyway, I don't know how it came about, but he mentioned he had a very heartbreaking thing happen on a recent trip. Baumi's father died when he was 15. Since then he had taken to wearing his father's hat everywhere and all the time. It had become a constant bittersweet reminder.

Then, after arriving at some airport, he realized he had left the hat on the plane. Though he went back to find it, it wasn't there. He had lost it. Or, it was lost.

He was truly devastated. He said he missed the pain that the hat allowed him to feel.

Like any scrap of your lost beloved’s hem that licks the wound of loss to a sweet-tasting rawness, these momentos reassure you that the love was real and deep. That you could love.

Or something like that.

I demoed the song once laying in some mourning doves. But, I especially remember performing it live for the first time for a small group at Margo and Dan's Day of the Dead party.

here's that Demo :

Andrew and I set out to record some basic tracks for the Paradise Bound project back when he was a music teacher at a private school outside of Boston. We'd blocked out a weekend during Christmas break and were recording it in the band room there. He lay in the rhythm for My Father's Hat and I'd done a scratch on the old accordion. Then a gigantic snow storm came in and nothing else happened for another decade when the song seemed to fit in with the UnReQuieted set. The rest of the instruments were recorded by Jon at the ever-loving Brick Hill.

Lyrics

I lost my father's hat
and now I've got a ghost on my head.

When you love someone so much, you hold on to the pain,
the pain of a touch that you'll never feel again.

It's like a talisman, a fetish, a gold magic watch;
you guard it at all cost.
and now it's lost
my father's hat

I've lost my father's hat
and you wanna know my only comfort....my only care.....?
that's that that hat like my father is out there.
I've lost my father's hat.

music and Lyrics by Humberto Cordero

Andrew : drums/percussion

Jimmie : bass

Aaron : guitar

Humberto : vocal, accordion, electric piano

Recorded by Jon Evans at Brick Hill Studio except drums/percussion which Andrew recorded when we tried to start Paradise Bound about ten years ago until we got shut down by one of the biggest blizzards in Northeast history. I can still remember that guy outside windows of the school with the snow blower going back and forth.

Mastered by Coast in Berkeley, CA

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM : : : AND NOW AVAILABLE ON iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and all other music platforms.