The grunge music scene that crawled wearily out of Seattle (draped in flannel) in the early 1990s to great aplomb wasn’t synonymous with the United States military. Then, or now. And while its heyday paralleled Americans fighting overseas in Iraq and Kuwait in the Gulf War, it’s more famously been associated with disturbed schoolchildren, drugs and … juvenile deodorant.

More a quarter of a century later, however, one weathered — yet sturdy — relic stands tall; proud patina and all, for U.S. military veterans. And it’s pure grunge. Whole-hearted, overdriven and raucously true.

It comes with it a story — a moment in time — that will make you smile just as much as it’ll make you sing. Why, just hearing it will leave you dusty. Because in a subtle, yet moving way, it transacted a tribute: reluctant love and recognition from two people who could feel it most. An estranged father and a penitent son. A famous long-haired guitarist and his pops, Jerry Cantrell, Sr.

Jerry Cantrell, Jr.’s dad. The stoic Okie. The Vietnam veteran.

“The Rooster.”

Here’s the son back in 1992 talking about the one and only time his father saw his band, Alice in Chains, play the song they wrote about him. It’s honest, yet more than that, it’s undeniably moving — he paints a gesture, a picture in words that’s impossible to forget (via Guitar for the Practicing Musician Magazine):

Yeah. He’s heard this song. He’s only seen us play once, and I played this song for him when we were in this club opening for Iggy Pop. I’ll never forget it. He was standing in the back and he heard all the words and stuff. Of course, I was never in Vietnam and he won’t talk about it, but when I wrote this it felt right…like these were things he might have felt or thought. And I remember when we played it he was back by the soundboard and I could see him. He was back there with his big gray Stetson and his cowboy boots — he’s a total Oklahoma man — and at the end, he took his hat off and just held it in the air. And he was crying the whole time. This song means a lot to me. A lot.

Here’s to Jerry Cantrell, Sr..

Play it. And play it loud:

It’s also worth noting that MMA fighter Tim Kennedy, a U.S. Army vet we’ve featured numerous times on this here blog, comes out to this song before each and every one of his fights.