Elliott Park - Songs with My Daughters (2020)

Singer-songwriter-father Elliott Park‘s forthcoming family-focused record Songs With My Daughters, out digitally 16 October, is an imaginative and lovely collection. Park recruited his daughters Anna (18), Autumn (16), and April (14) for a more collaborative effort this time around; they had previously recorded backing vocals but are more in the fore here. Park is the Nashville-based musician who penned the doting song “I Loved Her First”, sung by Heartlands, and he released his first family-record Just Be in 2018.

Now, with the arrival of Songs With My Daughters, Park leads off with the stellar track “To the Moon and Back”, a playful duet with his daughter Anna. As a parent, the peppy tune reminds me of several inventive or STEM children’s books with its opening line about a rocket ship. And it quickly turns into a reminder of the lengths a parent will go to for their child, in this case, retrieving rocks from the moon. But mid-tune, Anna’s voice demonstrates how whipsmart the daughter can be as she figuratively inserts herself into the story as a stow-away on the rocket before the two voices bounce off each other.