#112, “Daddy Lessons,” Beyoncé (2016)

150 Favorite Songs: #112, “Daddy Lessons,” Beyoncé (2016)

Beyoncé, as a rule, doesn’t make music for me. Someone like me (a nerdy white guy who’s crossed forty) is not particularly relevant, culturally. Beyoncé is one of the three or four most relevant human beings alive, so whether there’s anything for me on her record is not a priority to her. This is as it should be. There’s plenty of music that is for me, and most global pop stars aren’t after my demographic. Mostly I’m happy that she is out there doing what she does, and that I am invited to listen to it on her terms. Usually that means I show up late to the party and leave early, just happy to be able to attend (I try to bring snacks).

But when Beyoncé made Lemonade, she clearly had a plan to make an album that was for everybody. It was an act of extreme creative generosity from someone who is in a position to only do exactly what she wants. You can dance to “Sorry” or “All Night.” You could cry to “Pray You Catch Me” or “Forward” or “Sandcastles.” You could rock out to “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” nod your head to “Freedom” or “Formation,” fuck to “6 Inch,” jog to “Hold Up.” Whatever kind of person you are, whatever kind of music you like, there’s something for you on Lemonade. Beyoncé didn’t have to do that. She was coming off of a 5x platinum album that genuinely and legitimately changed music (she didn’t invent the surprise-drop digital release—that was Radiohead—but she absolutely perfected it, and proved it could be done at superstar scale). That album, 2013’s Beyoncé, was done entirely on her own terms; if you wanted to hear it, you had to pay full price and buy a digital copy or go to a store and purchase a CD, something no other artist in the world could successfully demand of her audience at the time. In exchange, you got an essential album from the most vital artist alive, who put maximum effort into it (your purchase also gave you eighteen (18) high-quality music videos, something no one had ever really done before either). Lemonade could have been a victory lap, or a deliberate lowering of the temperature—she could have followed up Beyoncé with a collection of tracks that didn’t make the record from the recording sessions, something that artists from Radiohead to Kendrick Lamar have done to drop the stakes after releasing their own seismic albums. (Amnesiac and Untitled Unmastered are both extremely listenable, but they’re also both punts—they bought the artists a few extra years to figure out what to do next. Beyoncé didn’t do that.)

So that’s the context of “Daddy Lessons.” I liked Beyoncé very much when it came out, bought the album on vinyl and played it in the house many times in the months and years that followed. Kat and I used to imagine that the bullfrogs that live in the creek next to our house were singing “Drunk In Love” when they would croak through the night after the rain. (It’s a mating call joke.) Apple Music says I’ve played “Mine” 67 times—but I was still a guest at Beyoncé’s party. “Daddy Lessons,” though, is a different kind of party. It’s the kind I’ve been to before, many times.

It starts with those horns, a little distorted (but just barely), and the hand claps. It’s in no hurry, as the drums come in and she lets out a hoot before repeating the word “Texas,” to remind you where she comes from. The song remains patient as the bass comes in, dropping single notes at a languid pace. I’ve heard songs like “Daddy Lessons” on porches and in basements and living rooms most of my life. They weren’t usually that good, because most songs aren’t that good, and nobody who played them could sing like Beyoncé, because a very small number of people on the planet can, but I knew the context.

I didn’t need “Daddy Lessons,” because I had all those other songs, but I got it anyway. I don’t think Beyoncé approached “Daddy Lessons” with the thought “how can I reach people who love bluesy country songs that anybody could play on the porch. I’m not that narcissistic. Rather, I think she is someone who loves bluesy country songs that anybody could play on the porch, and she wanted to express that side of herself, too. And because she is Beyoncé, she was fearless in putting that on a record that she knew everyone who cared about music was anticipating.

She put every part of herself on Lemonade, and it turned out that parts of that were parts I recognized in myself. That’s a creative risk—she could have done anything, and she did this—and it’s one that I don’t think most artists would have taken. (It also, somehow, seemed to annoy the music industry’s gatekeepers, who refused to award Lemonade most of the many Grammys it deserved; at the time, an anonymous Grammy voter expressed that he believed she was trying to game the system by making songs in multiple genres that… everyone… liked? It would be funny if it weren’t also racist to say that Beyoncé, by putting rock and country and pop songs on her album, was manipulating the system to win awards instead of just, like, expressing herself as an artist.) But Beyoncé is aware, at this point, that the Grammys are bullshit and her connection to her audience is everything. “Daddy Lessons” put me fully in that audience. She didn’t need me there, but I’m grateful I was invited in anyway.

You’ve probably already seen this, but just in case, here’s Bey and the Chicks performing “Daddy Lessons” at the Country Music Awards in 2016. The band went on to take the song with them on tour, where it sounded great even without Beyoncé.