Premiere | Julie Amici & Dean Mueller – ‘Daddy’

Photo by Darina Neyret

Julie Amici & Dean Mueller run the roots gamut on their upcoming album, I Loved You So. Nestled comfortably in the soles of old-school Americana, the kind of music that they create transports listeners into home-sewn stories of family, life, and love. They do so with a keen sense of what makes timeless folk, country, and blues-tinged tunes tick and produce an ageless sound in the process.

I Loved You So promises real life grit, and ‘Daddy’ serves that promise well. Equally pensive and lilting, the folk tune sways while Amici & Mueller paint the tale of a complicated family. It’s actually based off of Amici’s real father.

She states, “I was inspired to write this song when I visited my Dad recently. It’s about about aging and complicated family relationships. The lyrics came pretty naturally and a lot of them are true. I mean, he didn’t outrun the cops like in the song, but his hair is white now and his teeth are falling out. All he really has left is his car, and he still drives it fast. It’s a truly American theme—the muscle car and the aging man clinging to youth through the embodiment of a car’s power. Really, it’s a song about having empathy for another human being who’s kind of a jerk, a person who is hard to understand—an outsider, a rebel.”

Words by: Jonathan Frahm