Peter Bradley Adams Traces Generations on ‘A Face Like Mine’ (Premiere)

Peter Bradley Adams needed to solve a generational quandary. Is it possible that the regrets of our fathers, and our father’s fathers, are passed down along the line, saddling us with problems we didn’t create? Adams went about testing this theory by writing a song from the point of view of his grandfather, whose own dad left the picture when he was very young.

Finger-picked guitar, subtle banjo, and a dobro ease through “A Face Like Mine,” while Adams sings sweetly about his family’s own history. In fact, the single cover (which you can see in the Soundcloud link below) features Adams’s grandfather and great-grandfather. Coincidentally, the photo was taken just 200 yards from the songwriter’s current home in Nashville, a fact unbeknownst to Adams until after doing some research.

“I wrote this song while I was India,” Adams tells No Depression. “I was thinking a lot about the possibility that personal traumas can get passed down through generations… that we can unknowingly feel the effects of something that happened generations before us. But it’s also a song about forgiveness.” 

A Face Like Mine, Adams’s sixth studio record, drops April 21. Stream the title track below.