Losing a family member is one of the hardest things a person can go through, especially when that family member is your own father. Country music singer Cole Swindell lost his father in an unexpected tragedy in 2013 when a car he was working on fell on top of him. Swindell was of course devastated and has since poured his grief into his music.
The most recent tribute comes in the form of the song “Dad’s Old Number”, which is a song that anyone who has experience loss can relate to.
“It’s definitely the most personal song to me. If you’ve ever lost someone you love — doesn’t have to be your dad — no matter who that is, you know what it’s like to have their number right there in your phone and just wish you could call it through the good times and the bad times because they were the ones that were always there for you,” said Swindell.
In the song another person has Swindell’s father’s old phone number and he writes about how that would go when he called it sometimes.
I’m sorry ma’am, don’t hang up
Nah, I ain’t selling nothing
I don’t know what I was thinking when I called
I guess I wasn’t
Yeah, I was just down on my luck
Having some trouble with this old truck
And the guy that used to pick up
He could fix anything
“To be hit with the reality that you don’t have them to lean on anymore is a tough thing, but it’s real life and this song crushes me every time in a good way. I hope you folks who can relate to it find comfort,” says Swindell.
The song wasn’t actually written by Swindell, which is surprising considering how much it hits home. It was almost like the songwriters, Jessi Alexander and Chase McGill, were given a message from the other side. The song was written on Swindell’s tour bus when he wasn’t there.
“If you can imagine how disappointed I was originally when I walked out of my room and they were like, ‘Sorry, it just came,’ ” Swindell recalls. “But then I heard it, and it was one of those moments where as an artist and a writer, it was like, ‘I had no part in that song.’ I could have messed it up. It was brilliant.”
You can listen to “Dad’s Old Number” on Swindell’s new album All Of It below!
