“Today’s The Day” by Lucy Kaplansky

In 2007, singer-songwriter Lucy Kaplansky released a sweet and reflective song called “Today’s the Day.” This song serves as a lovely funeral tribute for Kaplansky’s father, famous mathematician Irving Kaplansky, who had died the year before, after living a long healthy life until his last year. Lucy Kaplansky wrote the song as a way to reassure her father, through an anecdote about the card games they used to play, that it is okay for him to die. She acknowledges the lessons he taught her by telling him that his teachings allowed her to “always beat the other kids but the bets are off today.” The “bets” she alludes to are her father’s struggles to let go of life and accept the death that awaits him.

“Today’s The Day” demonstrates a daughter’s promise to her father to be there until his very last breath. Etched in her powerful lyrics, Kaplansky sings, “Tonight’s the night I’ll say goodbye the last time that I can / I’ll kiss your sleeping head and hold your dying hand.” She reminds him that beyond the physical world “there’s a place we both know; I will meet you there.”

Through the strumming of an acoustic guitar, Lucy Kaplansky’s affectionate song reveals that, despite any difficulties that fathers and daughters might have had in life, innate love and support, as long as they are present, will surmount any disagreements or hardships during the dying father’s time of need.

Today’s the day I will let go of what you’ll never be
It’s the imprint of how you lived that shines so bright in me
There was music from your hands and music filling up your room
There were numbers filling yellow bands, all these close to you
Out beyond this silent room, out beyond this blood we share
There’s a place we both know; I will meet you there.

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

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