Mendooran dad Michael Little loved the bush and helping people, and to daughter and country singer Michelle he was a hero.
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The artist who completed high school at Dubbo penned a song as a birthday gift to her father when he was receiving treatment for cancer in 2017.
Called You Don't Have To Be A Hero, Little is set to release the song in honour of his memory via digital platforms on January 25, his birthday.
The next day she will launch the single at her father's childhood home of Bargo.
Little recalled the emotional time that moved her to write the song.
Her father had already undergone major surgery at a Sydney hospital and had just started a 13-week course of radiation treatment.
She said it felt strange to leave him but she had shows booked at the Tamworth Country Music Festival and he wanted her to go.
"He was very impressed that I had 'Merle Haggard's guitarist', Redd Volkaert, playing on my Patsy Cline show that year," Little said.
Driving to Tamworth, Little had a lot of time to think about how brave her dad was and how she desperately wanted to help in some way.
"Singing always makes me feel better so I started working on the idea of someone who, despite their best efforts, can't help but be a hero combined with the idea that even 'heroes' need help sometimes," she said.
The artist had a "rough chorus" by the time she reached Tamworth but didn't think much more of it until January 25 rolled around.
"It was Dad's birthday and I felt horrible," she said.
"I should have been in Sydney with him."
So Little sat on her hotel bed and finished the song, and then drove out to a quiet spot and videoed herself singing it and wishing her dad a happy birthday.
"The video file was too big to message so I posted it to Facebook so Dad and [his wife] Gina could watch it," she said.
"There were lots of tears all round."
Later in the year the country girl returned home to perform the song at the Mendooran Merrygoen Memorial Club at a fundraiser for her father, Gina and her two youngest brothers, Lawrance and Ryan.
"Unfortunately Dad was unable to attend and in October [2017] he passed away," Little said.
"He never heard me perform the song in person but he always loved me singing so I know he would have been very proud of me for recording and releasing his song.
"He wouldn't have said much but he would've given me a hug that said it all."
The singer's live gigs were halted by COVID-19 in 2020 and she headed back into the studio for some "long-overdue recording".
Little said it was a bittersweet moment when she and Michael Carpenter finished the song in the studio.
"I couldn't stop crying because I just wanted to call Dad and tell him we'd finished it and I wanted him to hear it."
The single artwork is an old photo of father, the eldest of five, and his younger brother and sister taken on the farm near Bargo.
"I chose it because my dad was an ordinary person but to his family he was a hero and I hope that's something a lot of people can relate to," Little said.
Little's parents married at the Bargo farm, and moved to Mendooran in 1982 - the year she was born.
"He loved farming and working with machinery and set up his own wood-cutting business which has been passed down to my brother, Mitchel Little," Little said.
"Dad loved helping people and gave everyone a fair go and was well-known throughout the Mendooran community as was evident at the great turn out for his two fundraiser events.
"He loved the bush and country life and Mendooran was his home.
"He lived there until he died in 2017 at 57 years old.
I feel proud that I was able to make something that tells people about my dad and how, to me, he was a hero.
- Singer Michelle Little
"When I sing the song, I don't feel sad.
"I feel proud that I was able to make something that tells people about my dad and how, to me, he was a hero."
You Don't Have To Be A Hero will be available on digital platforms from January 25 and is the latest single from the upcoming album due for release in mid 2021.
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