I don't know what I was supposed to learn from this, but I'm not happy about it.

It's funny. I listen to music... strike that: I listen to a lot of music. It's kind of an obsession, really. I buy CDs compulsively. Order them online, have them shipped to my home, download them onto iTunes and then load them into my car stereo. Drive around. Listen. Absorb. Hope to be moved.

And maybe this is just a function of the kind(s) of music I listen to... but while there's staggering volumes of content across the 15,000+ songs I currently have loaded on my computer that applies in all ways, shapes and sizes to my life - both as I experience it during waking hours and what hides within the echoing recesses of my skull - there are only 15 songs with the word "father" in them.

15. I called a math scientist, and he told me that's only .001 of my music as a whole. I mean, sure: if you add in the word "dad," you probably triple that number. But that's misleading, as 2/3 of that added number is a function of the Grandaddy and My Dad Is Dead CDs I own. Pull those out, and you've still got less than 30 songs total that make direct, titular reference to something that in day-to-day terms owns about 80% of my life.

Funny.

Now, as I said: I understand that this is, in part, a function of my own tastes. There is no room for Cat Stevens in my life. No Celine Dion, or that Butterfly Kisses guy. If I listened to Natalie Cole and Luther Vandross, there's little doubt my queue would be overflowing with big-voiced paens to pater familii.

But that's not me. I love my music. And my music says strange and disturbing things about fatherhood.

1. Song For My Father — Angels of Light
Well, hell. The fact that Michael Gira shows up here at all is profoundly distressing. Michael Gira, for those not in the know, was the godfather of Swans — one of the darkest, most unnatural creatures to crawl from the primordeal sludge of postpunk. After a time, Swans evolved from music devoted to pain - both the description of and the infliction of - into something strangely beautiful and near-symphonic... and then they imploded. Eventually, Gira re-emerged with Angels of Light, and while his approach may have been less confrontational and corrosive than classic Swans, there is no mistaking his voice and vision for that of anyone else. Predictably, his story of his own father is brutal in its honesty and shame: "Thank god you never saw the person I've become." But it's no less beautiful for that brutality.

2. Texas Girl At The Funeral Of Her Father — Randy Newman
Those who know Randy Newman only from Short People or - what with us being parents and all, his soundtrack work for Toy Story and other kid flicks - are missing one of the greatest songwriters of the past 40 years. This song has been a favorite of mine since the first time I heard it, and why not? It's simple, lovely and heartbreaking: a realization of the scenario suggested by the title. Wistful. Warm. And achingly sad for the sense of love and comfort suddenly vanished. "Here I am, alone on the plain. The sun's going down; it's starting to rain. Papa... we'll go sailing again." And then I think of my own girls, years from nowm standing in the rain, surrounded by bouquets and well-wishers, and it's like something catches in my throat. And then the song is over.

3. Father, Son — Peter Gabriel
This is from Gabriel's Ovo, a strange concept album that nobody ever bought. And probably rightfully so. But this song? As gorgeous as anything he ever recorded. Gabriel, at his best, is an absolutely brilliant lyricist, and this song spans the lifetime of father-child relationship, from the early moments of immense pride and wonder - "I could hold back the tide/with my dad by my side" - to the turbulence of later youth ("Struggling in our separate ways/mantras and hymns/unfolding limbs/looking for relief from the pain") - to the ultimate reversal of roles ("You're moving quite slow/how far can we go...").

A lesser man - one without a great, aching black chasm in his chest where a heart should be - might get choked up by something like this. Thank god that's not a problem for me.

4. My Father's House — Bruce Springsteen
It's from Nebraska. Does that tell you everything you need to know? Christ. This is the most depressing collection of songs of all time, and Springsteen at his most haunted fits in here just fine. This song is about a guy who dreams that he tries to go home, but the way is long and hard and tortured, and when he finally arrives... nobody knows him, and he is alone in the world. The end.

5. Daddy's On Prozac — Joseph Arthur
This is getting ridiculous. Second line of the song: "My daddy beat his love into me." You know what? Don't even bother listening to this song. I'm sorry for even including it. Would you like me to just punch you in the head instead? Because while it might be kind of painful, long-term it'll probably be less traumatic than listening to this mix.

6. The Father Who Must Be Killed – Morrissey
Morrissey? Seriously? That's the best I can do? "And the father who must be killed/is the blight upon your blighted life." Wonderful. That's... wonderful. What's the song about? A stepchild who is, apparently, emotionally abused to the point where he grabs a knife and stabs the father (stepfather?) to death in his sleep. But before he dies, the father comes to his senses and begs the child in question for forgiveness: "Stepchild, I release you/with this broken voice I beseech you." Something tells me this isn't a song I'll be playing for my kids in the car.

Alright. Y'know what? This sucks. I usually go for a full eleven songs when I do these things, but this is so monumentally depressing that I think DadCentric's entire readership would sooner swallow their own tongues and die than go through another five songs. And you know what's even better? I was trying to avoid some of the more obvious options - great fun though they may be - like Filter's Take a Picture or Everclear's Father of Mine. But you know what? It didn't matter. They would have fit perfectly into this big, beautiful bounty of paternal failure, hatred, fear and death.

I guess the lesson here is that my music hates fatherhood.

Fanfuckingtastic.