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In 1978, Eddie Rabbitt gave one of the final credits on Variations to a 78-year-old man who had spent his working life around an oil refinery. The musician was his father, Thomas Rabbitt. The instrument was the fiddle Eddie had been hearing since childhood. Thomas and Mae Rabbitt had come to America from Ireland and settled in New Jersey. During the week, Thomas worked in refrigeration at the refinery. Away from the plant, he played fiddle and accordion at Irish dances, family parties and neighborhood gatherings. Jigs and reels filled the house long before their son understood how far those melodies had traveled. Eddie eventually carried them to Nashville. He became known for polished country records that moved easily toward pop, but he believed the minor chords in his writing came from the Irish music his father played. On Variations, surrounded by Nashville session musicians, he decided to make that inheritance audible. “Song of Ireland” was written with Even Stevens and producer David Malloy. Eddie sang about being born in America while feeling drawn toward a country he had never seen. Near the heart of the recording, the song opened into the traditional Irish tune “Mist in the Meadow.” Thomas played it. The moment was not presented as a novelty or a sentimental spoken introduction. His fiddle simply entered the arrangement, carrying the music he had brought through dance halls and weekend gatherings into his son’s Nashville studio. Variations also contained major country hits, including “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” and “I Just Want to Love You.” Those songs carried the album onto the charts. “Song of Ireland” remained tucked near the end, never becoming one of Eddie’s signature singles. Yet its personnel list preserved something the hits could not. Among Nashville players such as Hargus “Pig” Robbins, Reggie Young and Joe Osborn appeared one unusually personal line: Thomas Rabbitt — Irish fiddle, track ten. Years later, Eddie still made room during his concerts for the old fiddle tunes his father had played. By then the refinery shifts and New Jersey dance halls were far behind them. The music Thomas carried into the family, however, had found its way onto a record bearing his son’s name. More of the Rabbitt family’s Irish story appears below, along with the recording on which father and son finally shared the same album credit.

“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.”

THE FIDDLE EDDIE RABBITT CARRIED FROM HOME

Thomas Rabbitt never moved to Nashville to become a professional musician. He worked at an oil refinery, supported his family and played Irish music when the working week loosened its grip.

His son took a different road. Eddie Rabbitt left New Jersey for Tennessee, wrote a gold record for Elvis Presley, built a career of his own and eventually became one of country music’s most successful crossover singers.

But tucked near the end of a 1978 album is a four-and-a-half-minute record where those two roads meet.

The Music After Work

Thomas and Mae Rabbitt arrived in the United States from Ireland during the 1920s. Their son Edward Thomas Rabbitt was born in Brooklyn in 1941 and grew up across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

Thomas earned his living as a refrigeration engineer at an oil refinery. It was steady industrial work, far removed from recording studios and country-music stages. Music belonged to the hours outside the plant.

He played fiddle and accordion at Irish dances in and around New York, and at weekend parties where the old tunes did not require explanation. Eddie later remembered that music as a constant presence in the house. His father had a small trio, and the family heard jigs and reels that had crossed the Atlantic with his parents.

Those melodies became part of Eddie before he had language for their influence.

A Guitar in a Fiddle House

Eddie chose the guitar rather than his father’s instruments. At twelve, after hearing his Boy Scout leader play during an overnight outing, he asked for lessons and began walking several blocks to the man’s home every few days.

The scoutmaster played country music, so country became the first style Eddie learned. Yet the records he loved did not sound completely foreign inside the Rabbitt household. The fiddle tunes Thomas played and the country songs arriving from the American South shared older musical roots.

Eddie later described the connection plainly: he believed the minor chords and strong melodies in his writing came from the Irish music around him as a boy. What Nashville would eventually call country-pop still carried traces of the gatherings where his father had supplied the dance music.

The Distance to Nashville

Eddie reached Nashville in the late 1960s without the security of a performing career. He survived on small jobs and a modest publishing salary while trying to place songs with established singers.

His breakthrough came through writing. Elvis Presley recorded “Kentucky Rain.” Ronnie Milsap took “Pure Love” to No. 1. An Elektra contract finally allowed Eddie to move from the writer’s room to the front of his own records.

By 1978, he no longer needed to prove that he belonged in a studio. “Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind)” and “Rocky Mountain Music” had established him as a recording artist, and the sessions for Variations used some of Nashville’s finest musicians.

That made the choice on the album’s tenth track more revealing. When Eddie wanted the sound of home, he did not ask a session player to imitate it.

He turned to Thomas.

Track Ten

Eddie wrote “Song of Ireland” with Even Stevens and David Malloy. The song approached Ireland through inherited memory: an American-born son picturing the country his parents had left and recognizing it through music heard at home.

The arrangement then made room for an older melody. “Mist in the Meadow,” a traditional Irish fiddle tune, was folded into the song, and Thomas Rabbitt played it at the age of 78.

The recording did not require Thomas to become something he had never been. He was not asked to adapt his playing to a fashionable Nashville part or compete with the polished musicians around him. He played the kind of tune he already knew.

Eddie supplied the new song. Thomas supplied the road behind it.

An Album Built for the Charts

Variations was not a private family project. It was a carefully produced commercial album containing “Hearts on Fire,” “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” and “I Just Want to Love You.” Two of those songs reached No. 1 on the country chart.

Producer David Malloy and engineer Gene Eichelberger helped Eddie create the clean, melodic sound that would soon carry him even farther into the pop market. The credits included veteran players whose work appeared across hundreds of Nashville records.

Thomas’s name sits among them without ceremony. The album does not pause to explain his refinery job, the Irish dances or the years Eddie spent listening. A listener could reach the end of “Song of Ireland” without knowing that the fiddle belonged to the singer’s father.

The personnel page tells the rest.

The Fiddle Beyond the Record

The connection did not remain sealed inside the studio. A 1991 profile described fiddle tunes as part of Eddie’s live show and noted that his road manager sometimes played the spot Thomas had often filled.

By then Eddie was known for records such as “Drivin’ My Life Away,” “I Love a Rainy Night” and “Step by Step.” His concerts were built around songs heard on American country and pop radio, yet there was still room for “Orange Blossom Special,” “Boil the Cabbage Down” and the kind of fiddle playing that had existed in the family before Nashville knew Eddie’s name.

Thomas was not merely an influence mentioned in interviews. At times, he stood inside the working life his son had built.

December 23

When Eddie spoke with Irish America in 1991, Thomas was no longer there. He told the interviewer that his father had died the previous December 23.

The conversation had been about Ireland, family and the music inside Eddie’s house when he was young. After mentioning the loss, Eddie picked up his guitar to rehearse before the evening performance.

Later, he walked onto the stage and worked through requests from the audience. His road manager took the fiddle feature that Thomas had sometimes played.

The show continued, as shows do. But the space had already acquired a history.

What Thomas Rabbitt’s Fiddle Really Leaves Behind

Eddie Rabbitt’s public sound was often described in terms of crossover—country moving toward pop, Nashville records reaching listeners who did not ordinarily buy country albums.

Thomas’s fiddle reveals movement in the other direction. Long before Eddie’s songs crossed a chart boundary, music had crossed an ocean, entered a New Jersey house and waited there for a son to carry it south.

Thomas never needed his own recording contract. One credit was enough to establish the line clearly. The refinery worker who played Irish dances on his nights off lived long enough to enter a Nashville studio and leave behind the tune his son had been hearing all along.

On Variations, the largest hits arrive earlier.

Thomas Rabbitt is waiting on track ten.

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