Coming at the end of an album centered on the death of Lead Youth Dave Leaupepe it's hardly a surpise that this song packs an emotional punch, flowing as a back and forth conversation between father and son in the valley left by the older man's passing.
They lyrics read as though written in snatches, fleeting snatches of presumed talk between the pair: starting with Dave following on from Hand of God he acknowledges his father's passing and looks at his own life through both men's eyes, wondering if he's living the right life and noting that he's following in his father's footsteps ("you sing the verses and I repeat the tune") before his father's voice lets him know that he loves him, and Dave dreams of one last meeting with his father after a show.
The final section is an update, a late night call to his father to let him know that everything is fine with the family ("Indy is growing", "we're thinking of children") before noting how much he is missed ("I wish you could meet them").
And it's there, right at the end of a review of his father's life, that he comes to terms with the contradictions of a life by realising how much his father had given him, how much he had learned from the older man, how much he has come to appreciate everything they shared together: "you were an angel in realtime".
Coming at the end of an album centered on the death of Lead Youth Dave Leaupepe it's hardly a surpise that this song packs an emotional punch, flowing as a back and forth conversation between father and son in the valley left by the older man's passing.
They lyrics read as though written in snatches, fleeting snatches of presumed talk between the pair: starting with Dave following on from Hand of God he acknowledges his father's passing and looks at his own life through both men's eyes, wondering if he's living the right life and noting that he's following in his father's footsteps ("you sing the verses and I repeat the tune") before his father's voice lets him know that he loves him, and Dave dreams of one last meeting with his father after a show.
The final section is an update, a late night call to his father to let him know that everything is fine with the family ("Indy is growing", "we're thinking of children") before noting how much he is missed ("I wish you could meet them").
And it's there, right at the end of a review of his father's life, that he comes to terms with the contradictions of a life by realising how much his father had given him, how much he had learned from the older man, how much he has come to appreciate everything they shared together: "you were an angel in realtime".