Danielle Durack - Dean

“Dean” is a heartwarming goodbye song to somebody loved and important. For Nashville singer/songwriter Danielle Durack, this is the personal story of her late stepdad. But the song also takes a universal meaning of how the bonds of love outlast life’s complications and even death.

Danielle explains the background of the song:

“Dean was my stepdad from ages 4-11, and remained a pretty large part of my life after his and my mom’s marriage ended until he moved away when I was 14. We stayed in touch via phone calls and texts, but I never saw him again. He was a father figure to me through some pretty foundational years, and due to some unfortunate circumstances, I wasn’t made aware of the funeral. I would have liked to have been there to share what he meant to me.”

The beautiful video looks elaborate, and is was indeed hard to make, as Danielle recalls:

“For the video, initially I wanted to use all home video footage, but after getting it all together, there were only a few of Dean as he was usually the one behind the camera. I wanted to find a way to incorporate them in an animated collage and at first I wasn’t sure how I was going to coalesce all these elements, but I got to work and I’m really happy with how it turned out. All in all it took about 6 months: 1500 stills, hours of editing, hours of exacto-knife-ing, and hours of moving everything a centimeter at a time. I’m glad I got to honor him and his life somehow.”

“Dean” is on Danielle Durack’s second album Escape Artist, out now. Watch the video below:

(Photo: Brianna Voron)