Usually, the expression ‘family tree’ refers to genealogy or ancestry. So, generally, the past and how it is connected to the present iteration of that family. But on their new single, Family Tree, Reading-based shoe-gaze-rock band, The Race, use the proverbial family tree as an actual construct that spells out the structure of a family, with the parents being the roots that prop up the rest of the tree and everything, allowing the ‘branches’ and ‘leaves’ to grow out in any way that they please.
The guitars on this song are definitely the centerpiece, underscoring the main theme of trying to desperately get through to someone. The guitars rise and rise and reach out as far as they seemingly can go on the hook, for example, just as Dan Buchanan, the vocalist of the band, beseeches, “you are enough, you are enough,” and this carries throughout the song as a whole.
As well as that, the guitars are also the backbone of the song, and everything else follows their lead, much like the roots Dan talks about in the lyrics. “We’re your family, roots on your tree.” It is almost like the instrumental perfectly reflects the shape of the tree that the lyrics keep harkening back to. This will make more sense in a second.
Though it is not explicitly confirmed in the song, you can infer from some lines that – and since Dan Buchanan wrote this at the request of his son – the child that the narrator of the song is speaking to is the leaves of this metaphorical tree. “You are loved / Not just down here, but up above,” which could have the double meaning of being loved in the heavens and also up in the general sky where leaves reside, “You grow in so many places,” which points to the clusters of leaves that bloom on trees, and, “I won’t always be around to see where you lay your head,” which points to the fact that roots cannot move whereas leaves of the tree can.
Going back to the aforementioned instrumental reflection of the tree metaphor, the lead guitar acts as the backbone, the roots, the one that keeps the song going, and the rhythm guitar is the one that gives the song character and shape and moves it along, just like the leaves of the tree.
Stretching the metaphor as far as it will go, let us say that since leaves are famous for swaying in the wind and changing color with the seasons, Dan says, “I see the struggles you’ve faced / Made you strong in all kinds of ways,” and then steers it into saying, “You are enough,” which is important to say here because if you go back to the metaphor of the tree, you might mistakenly think that the leaves don’t make sense without the rest of the tree as opposed to the other parts. But that’s true of the whole tree. None of the parts makes sense without the others. And that is okay. They are all still enough. They are enough to be here. They all have a purpose. Just like how the leaves wouldn’t make sense without the tree, the tree wouldn’t be a tree without the leaves, so… you are enough. Be here.
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Written by Leo August
