While Dad isn't exactly a children's film, of course, the composer handles it as such by applying equivalent sensibilities in his light touch and friendly instrumentation, the piano frequently guiding the strings and woodwinds of the orchestra. A solo saxophone occasionally infuses contemporary style. Synthesizers handle the fantasy world of Lemmon's character to distinguish it from reality, though the usage remains tasteful and typically continues the piano employment. There is nary an offensive moment in what some listeners may find a pedestrian tackling of the topic. Horner collectors familiar with scores like Searching for Bobby Fischer and To Gillian on her 37th Birthday will recognize the scope of Dad immediately. While those other scores lay on the drama more heavily during their melodic performances, Dad dribbles along in a more contemporary style. Horner's primary theme is a combination of two melodies interspersed with each other liberally throughout the work. The main melody is a merging of An American Tale ("Somewhere Out There" lives on...) and The Land Before Time, following familiar chord progressions and alternating between performances of sweetness in strings and woodwinds that will remind listeners of Jerry Goldsmith's innocent themes of the years to come, not to mention Horner's later Casper. In the opening cues, as well as "Dad," Horner's main theme is accompanied by light rock elements, and in the latter track, Jay Gruska's arrangement of Horner's material allows the saxophone to carry the tune to much of the same degree as in Goldsmith's Forever Young. Later in the score, this theme adopts a more strictly orchestral personality, culminating in a "Goodbyes" cue that mirrors The Land Before Time in its string usage. The opening bars of "Taking Dad Home" feature perhaps the most explosive outburst of emotion, as heard during a pivotal sequence in the film during which Lemmon's character is literally carried out a hospital by his son (Ted Danson) with Hollywood flair. This cue was cited by some critics as ruining the film, an ironic twist given that the cue was a replacement for a less obvious original recording for the scene.

Despite its controversy in context, "Taking Dad Home" does provide extended life to the composer's secondary melody in the main theme, one that better reflects the introspection of the work. The consistency of stylistic and thematic variations makes Dad an easy and nearly uninterrupted experience. The one exception is "Mopping the Floor," Horner's lone comedy cue from the film (aside from the rejected "I Think It's White"), for which he switches to a wild bluegrass/jazz rhythm performed by bass and steel drums with a catchy violin melody over the top. While some listeners might be turned off by this significant departure from the nonstop charm of the rest of the score, it is another one of those offbeat moments in Horner's career that you almost wish the composer had explored to a greater degree at some point. (Field of Dreams the same year also featured a cue or two of this kind of material). Amongst Horner's more subtle works, Dad measures up to nearly the level of The Spitfire Grill in its ability to involve the listener with just enough substance and warmth while maintaining appropriate restraint. It is at the opposite end of the scale from something like Class Action, which suffers from a striking lack of personality by comparison. Despite being badly out of print, the original album remained relatively easily attainable for many years, but Quartet Records presented an expanded and limited, 2-CD set of the score in 2023 that features the film presentation of the score in proper order on one CD and Horner's preferred album arrangement on the other. The original album version does contain a few moments that are purely unique in performance, including the "Main Title" sequence and "Goodbyes," which is a long and endearingly lovely summary of the whole score in either variant. The full film version of the score doesn't add anything major or significant to the experience, but the alternate cues included as a bonus do show that, aside from "Taking Dad Home," Horner had originally envisioned the score as having a heavier and more obvious dramatic touch in several important scenes, and these cues are a pleasure to hear. The sound quality of the two albums is not noticeably different, and either will serve as a welcome addition to any Horner collection.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download