Songfacts®:

• John Hiatt's father, Robert, had a lot of wisdom to impart, but John didn't appreciate it at the time. It was only when John became a father of his own that his attitude changed.
  
  "Your dad gets smarter the older you get," he told the Omaha Rainbow in 1988. "I thought he was such an ass when I was a kid - and he might have been - but I have a deal more respect for him these days. He wasn't around much when I was a kid because he was busy making a living, which I didn't realize at the time. Now, with my own kids, well, I've been home for a total of about three weeks since the end of January and I'm starting to feel like a ghost myself. And it hurts."
  
  In this song, John sorts out his feelings for his father, who died when he was just 11.
• A line in this song that Hiatt likes comes near the end when he sings, "let my brother's hamster burn in hell."
  
  "And who hasn't thought that in their time?" Hiatt said.
• You've seen the old man's ghost
  Come back as creamed chipped beef on toast
  
  "creamed chipped beef on toast" represents the stuff dads eat that their children find disgusting. In this case, it's mashed-up mean on toast, more commonly known as "s--t on a shingle."
• Ry Cooder played a stringed Indian instrument called a sitar on this track. Cooder released albums on his own but also played on tracks for other artists, including The Rolling Stones and Neil Young. Hiatt wrangled Cooder to play on his Bring The Family album, which includes "Your Dad Did." A few years later, Hiatt and Cooder teamed with Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner (both of whom also played on the album) to form a band called Little Village.