Watching Him Fade Away

Album: This Old Dog (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Mac DeMarco wrote this diary entry about his long absent father's cancer battle. "He's been a drug addict and a sketchy guy" Demarco told Uncut magazine. "I went up to see him and he looked like Keith Richards, bloated and green."
  • DeMarco expresses throughout the song a wretched mixture of anguish and ambivalence.

    The thought of him no longer being around
    Well sure it would be sad but not really different


    "The funny thing is," DeMarco told Uncut. "I wrote this record and now he's out of hospital, cancer free. I feel like a jerk; it's very bizarre. Regardless of him doing well or not well, I don't really know that guy. So maybe it's just me internalizing this and thinking, how am I supposed to feel about this?"

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