Monday Music "Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chafin

  This song I heard back in the 70's and I remembered it because of the story it told of a father that was always "too busy".  I saw similarities between this and the relationship between me and my Dad.  I know it was a different time and my dad had to work.  he was a CID agent with the U.S Army and his job kept him hopping so he wasn't around much.  My dad did try to play catch with me and my brother a few times and do other things like go fishing as "the guys" but he wasn't around much as I would have hoped.  We took a back burner to his career and I don't hate him for it,  It was the way it was.  His devotion to duty is where I got mine and my brother got his so we did learn a lot from our Dad.  But also because this song I make sure that I am available for my son and his activities and I spend a lot of time with my son because he is my son and he is a good kid and hopefully he will be a good man.  This song reminded me of that time can move quickly and before you know it, you will be attending graduation and wondering "what the hell happened".  I try to balance my work and home life as the best I can.  My son is my legacy and I try to "do right" by him.       I have a 90's song in mind for next weeks "Monday Music"


"Cat's in the Cradle" is a 1974 folk rock song by Harry Chapin from the album Verities & Balderdash. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1974. As Chapin's only No. 1 hit song, it became the best known of his work and a staple for folk rock music. Chapin's recording of the song was nominated for the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.

The song's lyrics began as a poem written by Harry's wife, Sandra "Sandy" Gaston; the poem itself was inspired by the awkward relationship between her first husband, James Cashmore, and his father, John, a politician who served as Brooklyn Borough President. She was also inspired by a country music song she had heard on the radio.  Harry also said the song was about his own relationship with his son, Josh, admitting, "Frankly, this song scares me to death."

The song is told in the first-person by a father who is too busy with work to spend time with his son. Each time the son asks him to join in childhood activities, the father issues vague promises of spending time together in the future. While disappointed, the son accepts his excuses and yearns to "be like you, Dad." The first verse tells of his absence at his son's birth and walking, as "there were planes to catch and bills to pay"; the second verse relates the father buying the son a baseball as a birthday present but likewise declining to play catch.
The final two verses reverse the roles. In the third verse, the son returns home from college and his father finally has some time to spend with him. Instead, the son just wants to go out and asks the father for the car keys. The fourth verse advances the story quite some time, when the father is long retired and his son has started his own family some distance away. The father makes a phone call to his son and invites him for a visit, but the son has his own issues with his job and his children are sick with the flu. He tells his father he will visit him if he "can find the time" and says "it's been sure nice talking to you" before he says goodbye. The final two lines of the song reflect the father's observation of what has happened:

“

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.

”

The song's chorus references several childhood things: The Cat's in the Cradle string game, silver spoons that are given to babies as christening gifts, and the nursery rhymes Little Boy Blue and Man in the Moon.