Maybe if you’re a certain age, the whole AFC Richmond team serenading Ted with a show of “The Sound of Music” might bring tears to your eyes. Personally, I am not one of those people. But playing Cat Stevens in a perfectly placed needle drop? It’ll get me every time. And judging by the response to “Ted Lasso” fans hearing the song in question, I wasn’t the only one feeling a little hazy.
Ted and his boss Rebecca are already saying goodbye from the bottom of their hearts when the light and slightly quirky acoustic guitar in Stevens’ “Father and Son” starts playing at the perfect time. Appearing on the timeless singer-songwriter’s classic 1970 album “Tea for the Tillerman”, the song tells the story of a boy on the brink of adulthood who must tell his father that he wants to separate from him and start his own life. On any other artist’s album, “Father and Son” would have been the best track on the record, but the heartfelt tune was eclipsed by the hit single “Wild World.”
“Father and Son,” however, found a whole new audience when James Gunn added it to the “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” soundtrack and incorporated it into the most moving scene in the entire film. Star-Lord aka Peter Quill comes into a fight with his real father, Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), forcing his adoptive father Yondu (Michael Rooker) to sacrifice himself to save Peter. “It may have been your father, boy, but it wasn’t your father,” Yondu shouts just before he dies. Unexpectedly, Yondu receives an official funeral celebration from Ravager to the tune of “Father and Son” during an inexplicably grand display of space fireworks.