Dear Father

Track 8 on 13

Produced by

This song is about the stories of child abuse within the Catholic Church. It’s about a pedophile priest. I grew up severely Catholic and then when we started this album… Read More

Jun. 10, 20131 viewer7.4K views

Dear Father Lyrics

[Verse 1]
A childhood innocence was drowned in your tears
The demons that you fought are feeding your fears
The poisoned secrets of your life stand revealed
The truth destroys you it's no longer concealed

[Chorus 1]
Dear Father, forsaken
You knew what you were doing
In silence, your violence
Has left my life in ruin, yeah

[Post-Chorus 1]
In ruin, yeah

[Verse 2]
You preyed upon my flesh then prayed for my soul
Belief betrayed by lust, the faith that you stole
Indoctrination by a twisted desire
The catechism of an evil messiah

[Chorus 2]
Dear Father, forgive me
I know just what I'm doing
In silence, this violence
Will leave your life in ruin, yeah

[Post-Chorus 1]
In ruin, yeah

[Bridge]
Preacher of theocracy
Hiding your hypocrisy
Under a false sanctity
Holy phony empathy
You have taken my life
Now it's your turn to die

Can you sleep at night?
When you close your eyes
Do you think of all the pain from your lies?
Or do you deny, you're responsible
For the victims of the sins you devised?
What you gonna tell them, when they ask you well then?
Is your conscience pure in your heart?
There is no exemption when you seek redemption
For all the lives that you've torn apart!

[Verse 3]
Your molestations of the cross you defiled
A man once holy, now despised and reviled
You took possession while confessing my sins
And now you have to face whatever death brings, yeah!

[Chorus 1]
Dear Father, forsaken
You knew what you were doing
In silence, your violence
Has left my life in ruin, yeah

[Post-Chorus 2]
In ruin, yeah, yeah, yeah
In ruin, yeah

[Outro: Rain and Bells Chiming]

About

This song is about the stories of child abuse within the Catholic Church.

It’s about a pedophile priest. I grew up severely Catholic and then when we started this album there was this whole big thing on the news and I was totally shocked by it. It came out of the Vatican; they’ve been covering this up since the ‘50s and '60s. And, at the same time, we’ve been criticized for being heavy metal or whatever and I was like, “How can they criticize any music when they’re such hypocrites.” And so it’s our way at getting back at them. And it’s the most disgusting thing on Earth for a priest to do that to a child. Somebody you trust so much that you confess your sins to them, so it’s like the ultimate trust that you put in somebody and then they turn around and do that. It’s disgraceful.

-Geezer Butler

The song, the closer their presumably final album (not counting bonus tracks), ends with the same sound effects of church bells and thunder heard at the start of Sabbath’s self-titled 1970 song, their very first. Preceding these sound effects, the ending music of the song interpolates “Black Sabbath”’s legendary riff including the (so-called Devil’s) tritone interval.