Distant Men, Regrets, and Weird Goodbyes

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February 10, 2025 - Justin Powell - Comments Off on Distant Men, Regrets, and Weird Goodbyes

The National is a self-proclaimed ‘dad rock’ band known for its creative musical arrangements, the lead singer’s smooth baritone voice, and cryptic (sometimes comedic) songwriting. Their song Weird Goodbyes came out in 2022 and the first time I heard it I couldn’t help but filter it through a lens of fatherhood, marriage, and family. You can listen to it here.

The lyrics from the song are important to us as dads because they share an emotion we typically can’t not be able to feel until it’s too late: regret. This song planted a seed of sadness in me…showed me a future I’d do anything to avoid. I hope, in a weird way, Weird Goodbyes does the same for you.

“Memorize the bathwater, memorize the airThere’ll come a time I’ll wanna know I was hereNames on the doorframes, inches and agesHandprints in concrete, at the softest stages”

A dad who’s looking back at memories of moments with his child. Maybe a moment while visiting his child at his ex’s home and now realizing how much he misses the routine things of fatherhood now that he no longer gets to be there. Moments that at the time didn’t feel like landmark moments, but now the character in the song goes back to these moments in his mind.

“I don’t know why I don’t try harderI’ve been going down some, some strange water”

A dad who’s looking back and wondering why he didn’t try harder. It could be trying harder to keep his marriage alive so that he could go back to the routines with his kids that he no longer gets to be a part of. It could be working to try harder to be present and enjoy these moments. Either way, the regret of not doing what he now knows to do is palpable.

“Move forward now, there’s nothing to doCan’t turn around, I can’t follow youYour coat’s in my car, I guess you forgotIt’s crazy the things we let go of”

There’s resignation to the regret. It is what it is and there’s no going back to the way it was. I think the song tells a story of a dad who’s visited his kid after separating from their mother and he no longer gets to be a part of their normal lives. He had taken them somewhere and one of the kids had left their coat in his car. The ‘things we let go of’ line has a dual meaning…the obvious one is that his child let go of their coat. The other meaning is that he’s reflecting on the craziness of letting go of family.

Chorus of the song:

“It finally hits me, a mile’s driveThe sky is leaking, my windshield’s cryingI’m feeling sacred, my soul is strippedRadio’s painful, the words are clippedThe grief, it gets me, the weird goodbyesMy car is creepin’, I think it’s dyingI’m pullin’ over until it healsI’m on a shoulder of lemon fields
What was I even leaving forI keep going back and forthI think now I’m about to seeDidn’t know how sad it’d be” 
The grief it gets me…the weird goodbyes. I don’t think there would be anything weirder than leaving my kids at another house and not being able to be around them in their normal lives. I don’t think anything of us could be prepared for how sad this would be…the song does well to tell the truth.
This song has stood as a warning sign, a voice from an unimaginable future, for me over the years. It’s both a call to be present with my kids as one day I’ll look back at some routines and regret that I wasn’t more present at every moment possible.
I also think this song stands as a warning for us to protect the health of our marriages. Let’s face it: Being married can be very difficult work. It’s a miracle that two people can co-exist with all the pressures, demands, dreams, and dysfunction we bring to a lifelong union. An ended marriage is the first domino to fall in line with relationships that will be forever changed. If our marriages don’t work out, our proximity to our children will also be forever changed…and as the song says, “Move forward now, there’s nothing to do.”
If we want to avoid the regret I interpret from this song, then we have to be sure to maintain a relationship with our spouse…but the next level of the song is that Dad didn’t seem to know how to be present in anything. Maybe it was alcohol that took him away and numbed him from his present pain. The distance from his spouse led to an ended marriage…and the natural consequences were that his relationship with his children was forever altered. Either way, the reality I know from experience is that a detached man (one who is always escaping reality in any form) won’t have any successful long-term relationships.

I hope you take this article for what it’s meant to be: A vision of what it would look like if don’t do the work to be present men. I’d rather tell you the truth up front than help you process grief and regret.
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Justin Powell

Justin is the Founder of Every Dad Project. In addition to my passion for all things dad stuff, I also love coaching sports, BBQ, soccer, pickleball, and helping business owners with marketing work.

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