Daddy Lessons

This song finds Beyoncé singing of her father, Matthew Knowles. She recounts how he taught her to be strong and always stand up for herself - making her a "soldier." The pair have a complicated relationship. Matthew Knowles had been Beyonce's longtime manager from her early Girls Tyme days through Destiny's Child and her early solo career. However, after firing him as her manager in March 2011, they became estranged. Their split was driven in part by Matthew Knowles' infidelity to Bey's mom. (Knowles fathered at least two children outside of his marriage to Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles-Lawson. The couple divorced in 2011, after 31 years of marriage).

At the end of verse two, Beyoncé sings of her daddy dying. Matthew Knowles is in fact very much alive and she's probably referring to her parents' divorce and subsequent estrangement from her father.

This is Beyoncé's first foray into country and the only track on Lemonade where she is the sole credited main producer. Beyoncé is a Houston girl where country music is huge and would have grown up surrounded by the sounds of Nashville. It is interesting that she uses the type of music she grew up with to revisit her own father's infidelity.