The Leader of the Band

While getting ready to return to Paris two days ago, I was shopping in the Meijers in Woodhaven, Michigan for microwave popcorn or something essential to modern day life. Some things are just cheaper and/or less expensive in the U.S. than in France.

Suddenly I heard a familiar toon: Dan Fogelberg's "The Leader of the Band.". This song went to #9 on the top 40 charts, and hit #1 on the adult contemporary charts in 1981. It was written and originally sung by Dan Fogelberg as a tribute to his father Lawrence (Larry) Fogelberg, who started as the director of a military battalion band in Detroit, and who left the military and went to Peoria Illinois, where he was a high school band director for the next 31 years.

While I've always liked that song, the lyrics struck me in a new way that day. I thought of my dad, whom now lives in Colorado with my mother. I didn't get to see either of them on this U.S. trip, although we did talk over the phone. However, as I attended the Saturday wedding and spent Sunday at First Presbyterian Church (where my dad ministered on staff from 1968-1979), I realized that nearly everyone I saw on this trip was linked through my father's ministry over the years. Meeting Willy (see yesterday's blog) made this even more pertinent.

While my father isn't a musician, he has been the "leader of the band" to many other groups, particularly in churches, as well as to his wife and 2 sons.

I also could identify with the line "I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go," as he was blessed me and released me for ministry and to do this across the ocean from himself.

Thanks dad for being a great leader of the band to me and hundreds of others. As the last words of this song say, "I am a living legacy to the leader of the band."

Leader Of The Band
Words and music by Dan Fogelberg

An only child
Alone and wild
A cabinet maker's son
His hands were meant
For different work
And his heart was known
To none --
He left his home
And went his lone
And solitary way
And he gave to me
A gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music
Denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once
But his music wouldn't wait
He earned his love through discipline
A thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls
Took me years to understand.

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul --
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy
To the leader of the band.

My brothers' lives were different
For they heard another call
One went to Chicago
And the other to St. Paul
And I'm in Colorado
When I'm not in some hotel
Living out this life I've chose
And come to know so well.

I thank you for the music
And your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go --
I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
And, pap, I don't think I
Said 'I love you' near enough --

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul --
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy
To the leader of the band
I am the living legacy
To the leader of the band.