'Remember Him That Way' by Luke Combs - Lyrics & Meaning

Just ahead of Fathers' Day on Sunday (June 16), Luke Combs released the ultimate dad album: Fathers & Sons. The record features a dozen tracks about the beautiful bonds between dads and their boys.

Throughout the release, Combs ruminates on his relationship with his young children but also on the ties between him and his own father. One such track is 'Remember Him That Way,' a song that finds the artist recognizing his dad's mortality but forever seeing him as the superhero he knew growing up.

Like many of the offerings on Fathers & Sons, 'Remember Him That Way' opens with a curtain of tender acoustics, a gossamer blanketing of silvery strings and pillowy rhythms. The arrangement is simple because it needed to be.

The delicate sound provides the perfect vehicle for such a poignant message about age and admiration to grab hold.

"There's an old man in a La-Z-Boy
TV on a Western, fast asleep
Grey in his hair, at least what's left
But the heart of a lion, beatin' in his chest"

The song opens on an intimate scene, an older man has fallen asleep watching a Western film. We can assume he is father – or at least father figure – to the artist.

Combs studies his features – the grey in what hair he has left on his head – and seems to understand what lies deep within the sleeping man: "the heart of a lion."

Even though, these days "there's a little more slow in his go / A little less rock in his roll," that doesn't stop Combs from recognizing the truth about the man before him.

"But I remember him ten feet tall and bulletproof
Throwin' me a ball in cowboy boots
A whistle and the dogs start runnin'
A whisper and Mama starts blushin'
A wrench in his hand and a beer in the other
God couldn't make a man any tougher
And that 'S' on his chest is startin' to fade
But I'll always remember him that way"

He may be looking at a greying man snoozing in his La-Z-Boy, but Combs remembers the father, no, the superhero, that raised him. He really sees the ten-foot-tall, bulletproof figure that always played catch, could fix anything and seemed to hang the moon.

"I used to think, that he'd never gеt old
That kind of thing was for regular Joes
And he triеs real hard, to put up a fight
But I guess time, is his kryptonite"

The artist sees time wearing on his old man, something he once thought was impossible. Heroes doesn't get old; "that kind of thing was for regular Joes," he sings. Even though, the years are showing, Combs still...

"'Cause I remember him ten feet tall and bulletproof
Throwin' me a ball in cowboy boots
A whistle and the dogs start runnin'
A whisper and Mama starts blushin'
A wrench in his hand and a beer in the other
God couldn't make a man any tougher
And that 'S' on his chest is startin' to fade
But I'll always remember him that way"

He sings that he'll always remember the larger-than-life man who taught him what he knows and laid out a blueprint of fatherhood that Combs seems to carry with him throughout Fathers & Sons.

There's an old man in a La-Z-Boy
TV on a Western, fast asleep
Grey in his hair, at least what's left
But the heart of a lion, beatin' in his chest

And there's a little more slow in his go
A little less rock in his roll, these days

But I remember him ten feet tall and bulletproof
Throwin' me a ball in cowboy boots
A whistle and the dogs start runnin'
A whisper and Mama starts blushin'
A wrench in his hand and a beer in the other
God couldn't make a man any tougher
And that 'S' on his chest is startin' to fade
But I'll always remember him that way

I used to think, that he'd never gеt old
That kind of thing was for regular Joes
And he triеs real hard, to put up a fight
But I guess time, is his kryptonite

'Cause I remember him ten feet tall and bulletproof
Throwin' me a ball in cowboy boots
A whistle and the dogs start runnin'
A whisper and Mama starts blushin'
A wrench in his hand and a beer in the other
God couldn't make a man any tougher
And that 'S' on his chest is startin' to fade
But I'll always remember him that way

[Instrumental Bridge]

And there's a little more slow in his go
A little less rock in his roll, these days

But I remember him ten feet tall and bulletproof
Throwin' me a ball in cowboy boots
A whistle and the dogs start runnin'
A whisper and Mama starts blushin'
A wrench in his hand and a beer in the other
God couldn't make a man any tougher
And that 'S' on his chest is startin' to fade
But there's somethings time can't erase
'Cause I'll always remember him that way

--

For more on Luke Combs, see below: