Song for My Father

Album: Shine On (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Many of the tracks on her 2014 album Shine On were inspired by the death of Sarah McLachlan's adoptive dad, Jack, who succumbed to cancer in December of 2010. The singer also had to deal with the divorce from her husband Ashwin Sood, after 11 years of marriage and the upheaval of switching labels (McLachan released Shine On on Verve after decades at Arista). The resulting songs are personal and contemplative, as she moves into the second half of her life battered and bruised but with hope. She told Jam! Music: "You don't get to this age unscathed. We've all been through a whole lot at this point in our lives and it's a bit of a turning point where you get to look at the rest of your life and see how it will play out. What have I done up until now? How am I going to make the rest of my life look? It's a real pivotal time, and it certainly has been with mine these last five years."

    "I wanted to try to emulate that in the music," McLachlan added. "My dad's death had a profound impact in my life. It took a couple of years to find out what that meant to me, and what he meant to me."

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