Back in 2003, Clay Aiken recorded a song called “Measure of a Man,” which became the title track of his multi-Platinum debut album. More than 20 years later, he’s now reworked the song in light of his experience as a father to his son, Parker.
Clay hasn’t just rerecorded the song: He’s changed the lyrics to better reflect his own experiences. “The original was about asking what defines a good man,” he explains. “This version is my answer — what I’ve learned through being a father.”
“‘Measure of a Man’ has always been a favorite song for me, but still it was assigned to me for that first album,” Clay notes. “It didn’t necessarily have personal meaning to me. Revisiting it now, and looking at it through the lens of the past 17 years I’ve had as a father, has been an opportunity to make the song personal to me way more than it ever has been.”
Clay says the fact that he was told to record his early material is one reason why he wanted to return to music, which he did last year with his holiday album Christmas Bells Are Ringing — his first album in nearly 15 years.
“For me, part of coming back to recording … has been about having the opportunity to do things on my terms this time,” he says. “And then the other big motivation first me has been that spending this past decade plus away while my son has been growing up had given me a lot of time to grow myself, too — to have new perspective.”
As Clay recently told People, Parker has his heart set on being a pilot. Clay jokes that he’s so worried that he’ll need to be “sedated” when the teen does his first big solo flight.
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