Moving Footage Shows Songwriter Singing For Terminally Ill Father

Storyful

Singer-songwriter Joe Fraley filmed himself on July 16 as he performed an original track for his terminally ill father at his home in Kapaa, Hawaii.

The uplifting footage shows Joe Fraley playing the guitar and singing, as his father, 79-year-old screenwriter Joseph Fraley, watches him from his bed.

“I’m singing an original song of mine to my Dad, who has terminal cancer” Fraley told Storyful. The musician quit his job a few months ago and moved to Kapaa in Kauai County, Hawaii, to care for his father.

“He was a rescue helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war, he was a screenwriter for Chuck Norris films, taught screenwriting at Art Center College of Design, and was a high school principal” he said. “But more than anything he was a great husband and father.”

The song heard in the video has not yet been recorded, but Fraley said that he planned on doing “whenever I go back home.”

In 2015, Fraley similarly recorded himself comforting his mother, who was then struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. Credit: Joe Fraley via Storyful

Video Transcript

JOSEPH FRALEY: think I'm better.

- Feeling better?

[LAUGHTER]

- Good.

JOE FRALEY: (SINGING) Oh. Oh. Oh. Can I get loud?

- Going to get loud, watch out.

JOE FRALEY: (SINGING) Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, [INAUDIBLE].

Sunshine [INAUDIBLE]. Sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Now the first thing, is everybody laughing and the grass is still green. It's all just perfect. But all we see is the worst of it. But the first thing is that, you can never see that all my life is just blown out, out into the sea. And I've always known, this could do me well but, that's [INAUDIBLE] I know, [INAUDIBLE] they can go to hell. [INAUDIBLE].

What do we want to become? Become. Become. It's so amazing. It is all right. It's all because, we're alive. Sunshine. [INAUDIBLE]. Sunshine. Sunshine. The fucking sunshine,

- Yeah.

JOE FRALEY: (SINGING) Oh. Oh.

[CLAPPING]

- Yay.

JOE FRALEY: Like it, dad? That get you alive?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- That'll wake you up.

JOE FRALEY: Did I wake you up? That's like a--

- That'll wake you up.

JOE FRALEY: --brisk cup of coffee

JOSEPH FRALEY: Yeah.