That's What Daddy's Do

Album: Change My Mind (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • Change My Mind chronicles a six-month period that was one of the most challenging times of Billy Ray Cyrus' life and included issues with his famous teenage daughter Miley. This was the last song he wrote for the project. He told The Boot: "Sometimes as a dad you've got to be willing to make decisions that are in the best interest of your family and you just gotta try; you just gotta try and do what's right for your family. Sometimes as a daddy you make sacrifices and you don't always do what you want to do. You do what's best for your family, and that's what daddies do. That's what it's about."
  • Cyrus penned this song in New York City in November 2011. "I was in looking at that big ol' city out there thinking a lot about my dad and about my family and that I'm the dad now," he recalled to The Boot. "The song just came to me and I sang it: 'that's what daddy's do is shield you from the rain, shield you in the storm, there to ease the pain, wherever you may roam, or what you're going through, know I'm by your side, that's what daddy's do.' I told my manager the next day, 'I wrote a song last night and I think it's pretty good.'"
  • The grammar in the title is highly questionable. The apostrophe makes "Daddy" possessive, so this would mean it's his "do." Removing the apostrophe would make more sense, but the plural of "daddy" would be "daddies," so if Billy Ray is trying to explain that fathers everywhere do that, it should be "That's What Daddies Do."

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