Consider This from NPR - The sound of dad

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

NPR's Bob Mondello and the search for a voice lost to time.Each day on this podcast we bring you the context behind the headlines.Headlines about President Trump or foreign policy or what's playing out on America's streets.This story is smaller. More personal. About one person’s search for a voice he thought he’d never hear again.But it moved us. And we wanted to share it. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Chloee Weiner and Connor Donevan, with audio engineering by Damian Herring.It was edited by Clare Lombardo and Courtney Dorning.Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Each day on this podcast, we bring you the context behind the headlines, headlines about President Trump or foreign policy or what's playing out on America's streets. This story is smaller, more personal. It's about one person's search for a voice he thought he'd never hear again, but it moved us, so we wanted to share it. We'll bring it to you after the break. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Consider This from NPR. This story starts with a movie, one that our film critic Bob Mondello just could not get out of his head. It sent him down a rabbit hole, and we asked him to explain.

I suspect it's because I saw the period drama The History of Sound, right around what would have been my dad's birthday, that I clocked that it was partly set in 1919, the year of his birth, the movies about two music students, David and Lionel, played by Josh O'Connor and Paul Meskell. What else do you know? More than you likely. Who meet in a New England bar arguing over who. knows the most obscure folk song. How about Silver Dagger?

No. Oh, it's such a pretty song. Oh, come on, let's hear it. Oh, I don't usually sing like this, everyone talking. Oh, excuse me. Quiet, please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Now you have to sing.

So Lionel sings. Don't sing love songs. You'll wake my mother. A spark is struck. She's sleeping here. They fall for each other, and after quite a bit of plot goes by, they head into the backwoods of Maine to record folk songs on what was state-of-the-art recording equipment in 1919, wax cylinders, a metal cone, and a diamond-tipped stylus.

The sound comes down this big horn here, and it shakes this needle, cuts a line in the whack. How does that catch the sound? Put your hand on your throat. Now hum. Let me take a quick history detail. tour here, because while we now take recordings for granted, the film's characters are astonished at the idea of preserving sound, which had only ever evaporated into the ether. And it's worth noting what a big deal it was. I thought Thomas Edison came up with the basics, but it was a

Frenchman who first captured sound waves in the 1850s as lines scratched onto sheets of soot-covered paper. He was studying sound, the way scientists study earthquakes when they record vibrations on a seismograph? You don't use a seismograph to play the earthquake back, so he didn't either. We can do it now with digital technology. Turns out in 1860, he'd recorded someone singing O'Clair de la Luna, an 18th century French folk tune. It took almost two decades before Edison figured out how to record his voice on a strip of tinfoil so it could be played back, a discovery that would give eternal life to accents, inflections, the any specifics that make each voice unique. That was 1877, and while that first recording was

destroyed when it was played, later that same year Edison re-recorded what he'd said. First words, I spoke in the original phonograph, a little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb, it speaks with quite a slow. Ever the visionary, Edison predicted his new invention would someday be used to reproduce music, preserve family memories, and maybe combined with another then new invention, the telephone. By 1919, his company had graduated from recording on tinfoil to recording on wax cylinders. That was the year fictional movie characters, Lionel and David took their song-preserving trip to Maine, and my dad was born. And as far as audio recordings, I thought that was where dad's story ended, because although I have spent my entire

adult life recording myself and other people, I never recorded him. I feel stupid about that now, but it wasn't really something people did before smartphones. And the iPhone had only just been introduced when Dad died in 2007. So the only audio I had of him was the message he'd left on my work phone. Turns out Edison was right about that. It was Dad's 87-year-old voice, diminished by Parkinson's, cracked, barely audible. Just five words. Bobby, this is your father.

Before I picked up and the system stopped recording. I used to play it back after he died so I could hear his voice again. Then NPR moved to a new building and changed phone systems, and it was gone forever. So a scene in the history of sound caught me up short. Hello, Lionel. And forgive me to fully explain why I have to talk about the end of the film. So if you hate spoilers, maybe hum to yourself for the next minute or so. The movie's student researchers part unhappily at the end of their summer in Maine,

and Lionel later learns that David has died. In his grief at losing the love of his life, he tries to locate the wax cylinders they recorded, but he can't for decades. And then when he's in his 80s, having spent his whole life as a musicologist chasing other people's voices, the wax cylinders turn up. And he discovers that on one of them, 23-year-old David recorded his own voice. Help this finds its way to you. It seems a gift. You've been very good to me, Lionel.

Thank you for coming north. So David sings to Lionel, the song Lionel first sang to him. Don't sing love song. As I was choking up, I couldn't help wishing that my dad's story at a coda like that. Dad was a top government lawyer for much of his career. So for years I'd searched news archives, libraries, thinking there must be tape of him somewhere, but never found any. Recently I mentioned my search to a friend whose dad was also a lawyer, and she said,

didn't you tell me he once presented a case at the Supreme Court? they started recording oral arguments back in the 1950s. A couple of hours later, she'd found the recording, beginning with the voice of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Number 65, Wirehouser Steamship Company Petitioner versus United States. It was dated February 18, 1963, a few weeks before my 14th birthday. And suddenly, memories from that morning came flooding back

of Dad getting dressed for court. He'd rented what he called a monkey suit, which usually means a tucks. But this was formal mourning dress required of government lawyers in the Supreme Court, black cutaway coat with long-rounded tail, dark gray striped trousers, gray vest, shirt with a high-starched collar. I remember thinking he looked like he was going to the ascot races in My Fair Lady. Anyway, now I had a picture in my head, but I hadn't heard his voice in more than a decade. And that had been his 87-year-old voice.

This would be his 43-year-old voice, the one he'd used to help me struggle through algebra homework and cheer me on at swim meets. I hadn't heard that in a full half century. The plaintiff's lawyer spoke first, laying out the case for damages after a steamship collision, and then 54 minutes in, Chief Justice Warren said, Mr. Mundell. Mr. Mundell? Chief Justice, may it please the court? There was my dad. The issue in this case is whether the liability of the United States on the Federal Employees Compensation Act. He didn't sound fragile or halting. He sounded young and assured, with a touch of the Bronx,

I didn't remember from later. He has to have been nervous, and he was clearly reading from notes, but he talked for 49 minutes almost nonstop, and then Justice Hugo Black paid him a compliment. Mandelo, I want to add a note that I think you made a good argument. Although I'm in trying to say that you have a number of different cases to your way. It's a difficult case, sir.

This was a consolation prize. Dad was promoting a losing case. Two months later, the unanimous decision would go against the government, though I don't recall hearing about that at home. and if he knew he was losing at the time, I don't hear it in his voice. He was never designed to interfere with the rights of third parties. You have literally said that. In fairness, this was the voice he used when he could still answer to my 13-year-old satisfaction,

at least any question put to him. Why is the sky blue? How many angels fit on the head of a pin? I had missed that voice more than I knew. Being able to hear him again, young him, a gift from Edison and that French guy, and all the folks after them who perfected the rich. recording process that's allowing me to talk to you right now. That was NPR film critic Bob Mondello.

This episode was produced by Chloe Weiner and Connor Donovan with audio engineering by Damian Herring. It was edited by Claire Lombardo and Courtney Dorney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. Thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong, supporters also hear everything. every episode without messages from sponsors and unlock bonus episodes of Consider This. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.