Life

Dad Sings "Shut Up And Go To Sleep" & It Is The Brutal, Sad Truth — VIDEO

by Dena Ogden

Every so often, a piece of art comes into this world and touches the lives of millions of individuals, uniting them with an invisible bond of shared experience, understanding, and appreciation. These are the kind of creative statements that live for generations, crossing borders and becoming instant classics. With that, I present to you this video of a dad singing "Shut Up And Go To Sleep" to the tune of Walk The Moon's summer anthem, "Shut Up And Dance With Me." He sings, and we are re-born by his expression of our same feelings. Get out of my head, Reed Verdesoto, you creative and talented genius.

If I had to rank the reasons why this video is fantastic, they would be as follows:

1) The perfect lyrics accurately depict the aching I feel when my son stirs in the middle of the night

2) His earnest crooning reminds me of my own late-night/early morning pleas

3) Perfect Stubble (I'm from the Pacific Northwest, what can I say? I appreciate facial hair.)

4) The blink-or-you-ll-miss-it plastic cup cameo at 0:01. So subtle, so flawless.

5) His straight-but-not-perfect hair part. I don't normally pay much attention to hair parts, but this one caught my eye

6) His tired eyes and expressive eyebrows match my own internal pain and exhaustion.

As the mom of a toddler who just got over his first ear infection, this video is the digital hug I needed today. We are all this sleep-deprived dad.

If you're not able to enjoy this work of art in its entirety, let me break down a few of the highlights for you:

Accessories Make The Man

The opening seconds of this clip tell us almost everything we need to know, including how this is a man not ashamed to drink from a kid's cup.

"What Did I Tell You?"

Seems clear enough to me, but I'm not a kid, so....

"What Did I Say?"

This is repeated at least six time during the song, so hopefully we all get it. (LOOKING AT YOU, SON.)

We've All Been There

Me too, Reed. Me too.

Dance Break

Because we all need one every now and then.

Images: Reed Verdisoto/YouTube(5)