Canadian singer-songwriter Scott Helman is honoring his late “Papa” with a poignant new single.
The vulnerable tune finds the 24-year-old remembering happy childhood moments with his grandfather, who died in June 2019. “Remember the way you drove those London roads, had to hold on for my life / You were like fee-fi-fo-fum coming up the stairs / We’d laugh, me and Jack, saying, ‘Papa I’m scared’ / Now I’m really scared,” he mellifluously sings in the chorus against a soft, nostalgic instrumental.
The song ends with a voicemail, in which Helman’s Papa is heard saying, “OK, I’ll speak to you perhaps, tomorrow morning. OK I loves you darling.” In a tweet, the singer revealed that the voicemail is one his grandfather “left to my mum the night he passed. As far as I know it was the last thing my Papa said to another person.”
“It hurts me when I listen to it, but at the end when he says ‘I loves you darling,’ I remember how much he cared about us and ultimately life – almost as if he had this unshakeable, careless disregard for death,” he continued. “The entire time he was sick he sortof treated it like an inconvenience… It wasn’t until he passed that I realized because he had lived so fully, it was the only way he knew how.”
at the end when he says “I loves you darling,” I remember how much he cared about us and ultimately life – almost as if he had this unshakeable, careless disregard for death. The entire time he was sick he sortof treated it like an inconvenience…(2)
— Scott Helman (@ScottHelman) July 24, 2020
…It wasn’t until he passed that I realized because he had lived so fully, it was the only way he knew how.
— Scott Helman (@ScottHelman) July 24, 2020
In the song’s accompanying music video, Helman watches an edit of “Papa” featuring home videos of his grandfather for the first time. In a side-by-side vignette, Helman is seen laughing at clips of his grandfather busting a move at his bar mitzvah and getting dressed for his wedding; and wiping away tears as he watches throwback videos of Papa swimming with him in the pool and chatting on the phone.
Watch the emotional “Papa” video below, and remember to call your grandparents today and tell them you love them.
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