My father died last February. I created a video memorial of his life using music that was either relevant to his life or expressed my feelings about him. The video is almost 30 minutes long and includes clips of him talking about his life and family. It took me months to create because I’d never done something like this before. One of the pieces I included was this song. I remembered it from my teen years and after looking it up I found out Gates had written it for his father. It was perfect.
Leader of the Band, by Dan Fogelberg, is another song with the same theme and sensibility.