A heartfelt sincerity resonates throughout “If There’s A Place,” a track released today from Fort Worth, TX-based artist D’Lee. Combining country balladry with a soulful vocal charisma, the track breathes life into a song written by her late father, Frank English Sr., in 1980. Blending vintage warmth with modern clarity, D’Lee’s stirring vocals and lyrical introspection honors legacy, memory, and the enduring bond between parent and child.
“He loved country music – real country music – the kind that tells the truth, no matter how much it hurts.” D’Lee says. “I wanted to honor that. I wanted to make something pure, something that would make him proud. He may have written this song in 1980, but somehow it feels like he wrote it for this very moment – for me, for us, for now.”
“Some find it in bars and taverns, an atmosphere that helps them forget,” D’Lee’s magnetic vocals open, conveying a lingering yearning for past good times while sitting at that barstool. Introspections on the lingering pain of memories, even when they were once positive ones, wholly compel into the powerful chorus — bolstered by blaring organs, twangy guitars, heart-aching vocals. The “if there’s a place” vocal enthrallment and ensuing “that’s exactly where I wanna go” beckoning is especially impactful — pairing that heart-on-sleeve retrospection with a painstaking desire to move on.
An especially resonating sequence takes hold past the track’s midpoint, as D’Lee’s vocals assume a conversational charm in recounting how she was just a little girl when her father wrote this song. “And back then, I wondered: what was he feeling that he would write such a beautiful song filled with so much sorrow?” D’Lee asks. A realization of the hardships of adulthood, and how that becomes evident as one becomes older themselves, resonates. A final title-bearing chorus invigorates thereafter, with bursting twangs and vocal grandiosity melding with replay-inducing power. Playing as a loving tribute to D’Lee’s father while also offering life-minded guidance in general, “If There’s A Place” is a wholly resonating success.
D’Lee continues: “This song isn’t just music. It’s a part of my Daddy’s soul. He never performed a single one of his songs in public, and now, two and a half years after he passed, I get to make him a professional songwriter. Recording this song and sharing his incredible talent with the world is one of the greatest honors of my life.”
