Yoakam was born in Pikeville, Kentucky, the son of Ruth Ann, a key-punch operator, and David Yoakam, a gas-station owner. He was raised in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Columbus's Northland High School in 1974. During his high school years, he excelled in both music and drama, regularly securing the lead role in school plays, such as "Charlie" in a stage version of Flowers for Algernon, honing his skills under the guidance of teacher-mentors Jerry McAfee (music) and Charles Lewis (drama). Outside of school, Yoakam sang and played guitar with local garage bands, and entertained his friends and classmates with his impersonations, such as Richard Nixon, who, at the time, was heavily embroiled in the Watergate controversy.
Yoakam briefly attended Ohio State University, but dropped out and moved to Nashville in 1977 with the intent of becoming a recording artist. Later on, Ohio Valley University in Parkersburg, West Virginia awarded and presented Dwight with an honorary doctorate degree on May 7, 2005.
When he began his career, Nashville was oriented toward pop "urban cowboy" music, and Yoakam's brand of hip honky tonk music was not considered marketable.
Not making much headway in Nashville, Yoakam moved to Los Angeles and worked towards bringing his particular brand of new Honky Tonk or "Hillbilly" music (as he called it) forward into the 1980s. Writing all his own songs, and continuing to perform mostly outside traditional country music channels, Yoakam did many shows in rock and punk rock clubs around Los Angeles, playing with roots rock or punk rock acts like The Blasters (Yoakam scored a small video hit with his version of their song "Long White Cadillac"), Los Lobos, and X. This helped him diversify his audience beyond the typical country music fans, and his authentic, groundbreaking music is often credited with rock audiences accepting country music.
Yoakam's recording debut was the self-financed EP Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. on independent label Oak Records produced by lead-guitarist Pete Anderson; this was later re-released by Reprise records, with several additional tracks, as his major-label debut LP, 1986's Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. It launched his career. "Honky Tonk Man", a remake of the Johnny Horton song, and "Guitars, Cadillacs" were hit singles. His stylish video "Honky Tonk Man" was the first country music video ever played on MTV. The follow-up LP, Hillbilly Deluxe, was just as successful. His third LP, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room, included his first No. 1, a duet with his musical idol, Buck Owens, on "Streets of Bakersfield". 1990's If There Was a Way was another best-seller.
Yoakam's song "Readin', Rightin', Route 23" pays tribute to his childhood move from Kentucky, and is named after a local expression describing the route that rural Kentuckians took to find a job outside of the coal mines. (U.S. Route 23 runs north from Kentucky through Columbus and Toledo, Ohio and through the automotive centers of Michigan.) Rather than the standard line that their elementary schools taught "the three Rs" of "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmetic", Kentuckians used to say that the three Rs they learned were "Readin', 'Ritin, and Route 23 North".
Johnny Cash once cited Yoakam as his favorite country singer. Chris Isaak called him as good a songwriter that ever put a pen to paper. Time Magazine dubbed Yoakam "A Renaissance Man" and Vanity Fair declared that "Yoakam strides the divide between rock's lust and country's lament." Along with his bluegrass and honky-tonk roots, Yoakam has written or covered many Elvis Presley-style rockabilly songs, including his covers of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in 1999 and Presley's "Suspicious Minds" in 1992. He recorded a cover of The Clash's "Train in Vain" in 1997, a cover of the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'", as well as Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me". Yoakam has never been associated only with Country music; on many early tours, he played with Hardcore Punk bands like Hüsker Dü, and played many shows around Los Angeles with Roots/Punk/Rock & Roll acts. His middle-period-to-later records saw him branching out to different styles, covering Rock & Roll, Punk, 1960's, Blues-based "Boogie" like ZZ Top, and writing more adventurous songs like "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere". In 2003, he provided background vocals on Warren Zevon's last album The Wind.
In the 21st century, Yoakam released dwightyoakamacoustic.net, an album featuring solo acoustic versions of many of his hits; left his major label and started his own label.
2005 saw the release of Yoakam's well-reviewed album Blame the Vain, on New West Records. Yoakam also released an album dedicated to Buck Owens, Dwight Sings Buck, on October 23, 2007. His duet with Michelle Branch, a song titled "Long Goodbye", was released as a free download on Branch's official website in early 2011.
In July 2011, Yoakam re-signed with Warner Bros. Nashville and announced plans to release a new album. 3 Pears was released on September 18, 2012 with twelve new tracks. The album, produced by Yoakam, includes collaborations with Kid Rock, Beck, and Ashley Monroe. 3 Pears was released to resounding critical acclaim and earned Yoakam the highest-charting debut of his career on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Country Albums charts. 3 Pears reached #1 on the Americana Radio chart on October 29, 2012 and went on to break the 2012 record for most weeks at #1 on Americana Radio.[4] By the end of 2012, the album was named on annual best of lists by NPR, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, AOL's The Boot, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, and Rhapsody, and has been included in more critic's "best of 2012" lists than any other artist in the country genre.
Yoakam won the Grammy Award for "Best Male Country Vocal Performance" in 1993 for the song "Ain't That Lonely Yet". He was also named "Artist of the Year" by CMT Europe in 1993 and given the International Touring Artist Award by CMA in 2007.
In 2011, Yoakam received the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award for his trailblazing achievements in the country music genre.
Please Daddy
Dwight Yoakam Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
As i turned to the closet, your clothes were not there.
As i walked into the kitchen, i found our little girl with a note
as i read it to myself, the tears began to flow. And she said..
Please daddy don't cry that way
I know mommy left us, but that's o.k.
you don't know how it scares me and i wish that you would stop
Please daddy don't cry that way
'cause I'm right here beside you and i promise that I'll stay
I looked down at her, through tear stained eyes
It's as though you were there, in a tiny disguise
She clutches her pajamas with that soft little hand
See all this that is happening, she can't quite understand
and she says...
Please daddy don't cry that way
I know mommy left us, but that's o.k.
Please daddy don't cry so hard,
you don't know how it scares me and i wish that you would stop
Please daddy don't cry that way
'cause I'm right here beside you and i promise that I'll stay
I'm searching my heart, and trying to explain
But the words that come out are swollen with pain
she looks through my eyes right down to my soul
sees all the hurt that i can't control
and she says
Please daddy don't cry that way
I know mommy left us, but that's o.k.
Please daddy don't cry so hard,
you don't know how it scares me and i wish that you would stop
Please daddy don't cry that way
'cause I'm right here beside you and i promise that I'll stay
Please daddy don't cry that way,
I'm right here beside you and I promise that I'll stay
Dwight Yoakam's song "Please Daddy" is a heart-wrenching ballad about a little girl's plea to her father to stop crying after her mother has left them. The song opens with the singer waking up to an empty room, noticing his wife's clothes are gone. As he goes into the kitchen, he finds his daughter with a note from his wife. The emotional weight of the situation is conveyed powerfully through the daughter's innocent and mature plea to her father.
She implores her father not to cry so hard because it scares her and promises to stay by his side. The song then delves into the father's feelings of confusion and helplessness as he tries to explain the situation to his daughter but struggles to find the words.
The song's power lies in its portrayal of a father’s pain and his daughter’s attempts to comfort him. It conveys how devastating a parent's separation can be and the emotional toll it can have on both the parent and child. The poignant lyrics and emotional performance by Yoakam make "Please Daddy" a truly moving song.
Line by Line Meaning
I woke up this morning, the room felt empty and bare
The singer describes the emptiness he feels in the absence of his partner.
As i turned to the closet, your clothes were not there.
The singer notices the physical absence of his partner's belongings from their shared space.
As i walked into the kitchen, i found our little girl with a note
The singer discovers his daughter in distress and with a message from her mother.
as i read it to myself, the tears began to flow. And she said..
The artist gets overwhelmed with emotion upon reading his daughter's message.
Please daddy don't cry that way
The daughter is pleading with her father to stop crying in a specific manner.
I know mommy left us, but that's o.k.
The daughter tries to reassure her father that it's okay that her mother is no longer with them.
Please daddy don't cry so hard,
The daughter doesn't want her father to cry intensely.
you don't know how it scares me and i wish that you would stop
The daughter is scared by her father's crying and wishes he would stop for her sake.
'cause I'm right here beside you and i promise that I'll stay
The daughter promises to be there for her father and stay by his side.
It's as though you were there, in a tiny disguise
The artist feels like his partner is present in their daughter, albeit in a small way.
She clutches her pajamas with that soft little hand
The daughter is holding onto something comforting during a difficult time.
See all this that is happening, she can't quite understand
The daughter is struggling to comprehend the events unfolding around her.
I'm searching my heart, and trying to explain
The father is attempting to make sense of the situation emotionally and verbally.
But the words that come out are swollen with pain
The father is struggling to express himself due to the immense pain he's feeling.
she looks through my eyes right down to my soul
The daughter is able to see deeply into her father and understand his emotional state.
sees all the hurt that i can't control
The daughter notices the depth of her father's pain that he's unable to hide or suppress.
Contributed by Nathan V. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Jason Halverson
got these online....
I woke up this morning, the room felt empty and bare
As i turned to the closet, your clothes were not there.
As i walked into the kitchen, i found our little girl with a note
as i read it to myself, the tears began to flow. And she said.
Please daddy don't cry that way
I know mommy left us, but that's o.k.
Please daddy don't cry so hard,
you don't know how it scares me and i wish that you would stop
Please daddy don't cry that way
'cause I'm right here beside you and i promise that I'll stay
I looked down at her, through tear stained eyes
It's as though you were there, in a tiny disguise
She clutches her pajamas with that soft little hand
See all this that is happening, she can't quite understand
and she says...
Please daddy don't cry that way
I know…
knucklehead0202
Heard Dwight on the radio this morning talking about how Merle Haggard was such an important friend to him and quoting songs like Holding Things Together, and how Merle could write songs like nobody else. Well, Dwight wrote this song and it is so underrated as to be ridiculous. Gives me chills....
C.C. Corne'
Love this guy's music, I am a huge fan of the Yoakam...
R L
C.C. Corne' love his music.
Reggie Fleming
me too!!
Lucy Moser
Thought I heard every Dwight song, but happened on this one while listening to other videos of his. What a sad but beautiful song, done in dependable Dwight Style.. thx for posting. In my opinion, Dwight is one of the last true country singers, but more than that... he is one of the best.
Lilly Morrow
Can I get a AMEN! Can I get a Hallelujah!!😙🤪🤩🙃
William Loss
This song hits home hard. I just picture my father crying when I was 5 years old after my mother broke him. Like it was yesterday. with her cheating on him and her cold abusive ways to me. He was a strong man. God Bless his soul.
Vickie Koeppel
I love you Dwight but you need to make videos with all your songs .Your so hot to look at ,Keep up the great songs honey,so many women adore you ..This is from your number one fan Vickie Lynn K.
TheSvtcobra1998
Dwight just keeps making great music. You know your fans will never leave you.
Kathy Green
Heartfelt, he puts all his heart into every song. Love this man!