What do you think about "Cat's in the Cradle"?

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Seriously, now.

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I find it hugely depressing.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

(we're talking about Harry Chapin, right?)

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

(Ugly Kid Joe.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

String figures are so 1999.

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

horrible

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, was talking about Chapin version (though Ugly Kid Joe version is fair game). Are there any other versions of the song?

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

let's hope not!

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Devo could do a good version. Do the lyrics have the word 'baby' at all in it?

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd love to contribute to this thread if i could find the time, but, you see, my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu. but it's sure nice pondering this question with y'all.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

The only good thing that I can say about this song is that its probably not as bad as that "Living Years" song.

(But that "Living Years" song might be the worst song every recorded.)

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Harry Chapin and Jim Croce....ugh, no thanks.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, you're meaner than a junkyard dog.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, hoo boy was that one craptastic. Mike and the Mechanics. Was Paul Carrack involved in that one? Dear God. That song makes "We Built This City" sound like "Stairway to Heaven." I mean, probably the shmaltziest song ever recorded.

As for "Cats in the Cradle" - meh. But I really liked Ugly Kid Joe when i was a little guy - one of my first published newspaper reviews (I was something of a Cameron Crowe / journalist prodigy character in my youth, you see) was of their first EP - I gave it 4 stars!

― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: "cat's in the cradle" vs. "the circle game." when harry hung up the phone in that fateful final verse, did it occur to him that the painted ponies are going up and down and we're all just captives on a carousel of time?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

But I really liked Ugly Kid Joe when i was a little guy

How old are you, Roger???

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm 26.

A song I hate much more than "Cats in the Cradle" is "The Day The Music Died" - omigosh I hate that song SO much. The lyrics are so cringeworthy that they HURT me. Like, I can't drive if it's on. "Fire is the devil's only friend?" Oh I can barely type it.

Now, "Eve of Destruction," THERE'S a song.

― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

No dude, the tragedy of "Cat's in the Cradle" is much more of a horror. Perhaps even worse: "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Classic!

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:48 (twenty-one years ago)

After that Chicago thread, I was afraid to tread here. Just the worst kind of maudlin crap, surpassed by Harry's signature, "Taxi."

My college roomate's incompetent punk band did a ramaramalama version of "Eve of Destruction" ca. 1979

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's great that some of Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" payday eventually trickled down to bankroll the tiny Harry Chapin Playground off the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, the most posh section of Brooklyn. Yes, it's likely a lot of nannies take their children there while the parents are working long hours...

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Monday, 14 February 2005 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never quite been clear on the last verse, all that stuff about how "my boy was just like me." Harry's son has to put off a visit since the new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu, and he says it's "sure nice talking to you, Dad." But from the sound of that verse, it sounds like Harry's son is actually more of a family man than Harry was. The dad's so narcissistic that he can't tell the difference between actively blowing off your family (as he did) and just dealing with everyday work/family crap - I mean, the son didn't seem adverse to a visit after the flu cleared up and the job settled down. So maybe his son DIDN'T turn out like him, and he should be glad.

― mike a, Monday, 14 February 2005 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

that's a good post, mike.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 14 February 2005 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

mike a raises a good point.

the parrallel (addressed in the "my boy is just like me" line), is that the father used excuses to spend less time with his kid when he needed attention, now the son uses excuses to spend less time with his father when *he* needs the attention. they have a similarity in *that* regard - but, it would not appear that the son neglects his own kids the way his father does (as he uses them having the flu as an excuse) - so he didn't really turn out like his father. also, the son is within his rights to ignore his father, as he was neglectful, and doesn't really deserve the attention.

i think the son *is* blowing his father off - even though he says "it was sure nice talking to you, dad". i think maybe there is some (unconscious?) sarcasm in that line (ie. "wow it's so nice that you want to talk to me dad, you neve did *that* when we were younger")

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 14 February 2005 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Fodder for some excellent jokes on The Simpsons, otherwise meh. I can't stand that treacly arrangement and the SLEDGEHAMMER OF PATHOS!! approach to songwriting.

"The Circle Game," on the other hand, actually makes me ooze blood from my eyesockets, in much the same manner as the horned toad of Arizone does when threatened.

― Telephonething, Monday, 14 February 2005 23:30 (twenty-one years ago)

The song is pretty bad, but still occupies a soft spot of my heart. When it first came out, my parents were recently divorced. My dad turned the radio up as he was driving me back to my mom's house and told me that he didn't ever want the two of us to wind up like the two characters in that song.

So, yeah, pure schmaltz, but I can't help myself.

A song I hate much more than "Cats in the Cradle" is "The Day The Music Died"

The song is called "American Pie", Jackie Harvey.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 14 February 2005 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

boomer bullshit

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 14 February 2005 23:53 (twenty-one years ago)

harry's son subsequently got elected to congress in 1994, in some butthole southern state, and is now contemplating "privatizing" social security (including his dad's). CAUSE YOU "NEGLECTED" HIS BOOMER ASS, YOU DUMB OLD FUCK!!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 14 February 2005 23:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I came close to punching the car radio the last time this song came on.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 14 February 2005 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I think it's interesting that some of you have read that much into the father/son relationship of the song. It's possible I just haven't given it as much thought, but to me it seemed like a statement about a common plight of family men everywhere, that the similarities between the father and son were more apparent than their differences, and that the statement was stronger for it. But now I wonder...

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

i always think of that mustardayonaise ad

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

For the curious, there's a Norwegian take on it by Finn Kalvik, under the title "Ride ranke".

― Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

This isn't even Chapin's heaviest sledgehammer. Try "Flowers Are Red" or his tale of an aging radio disc jockey, "WOLD" (get it?).

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Other covers of CITC: Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs, Judy Collins.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 01:56 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

daddy songs always make me cry

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:26 (twenty years ago)

I saw them open for Def Leppard in Denmark. Not my finest hour. Come on, I was young and very very foolish...

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

There was a recurrent theme in Chapin's songs of his running away from any form of responsibility. In "Taxi," his childhood sweetheart goes off to train as an actress and does well; he wanted to "learn to fly" but, it turns out, in the sense of getting stoned; thus does he suffer the indignity of her telling him (as the taxi driver) to keep the $20 bill she gave him for a $2 fare. In "WOLD" he gets his first DJ job on the same day as his wedding, pisses off elsewhere at the earliest opportunity to build up his career, and when it all goes pear-shaped (again his own fault) and he has to return home, tail between legs, he can hardly be surprised that his ex-missus has settled down with Someone More Dependable ("OK, honey, I see...I guess he's better than me").

Was the Chapin songbook a catalogue of different ways of being a narcissistic male shit?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:57 (twenty years ago)

daddy songs always make me cry

me too.

― mike a, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

I compare this to the never-ending Miss America Pie. Ugh, on both counts.

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

quite possibly the worst songs ever (Taxi, Cat's in, WOLD).

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

With that trifecta, he beats David Geddes' "Run Joey Run" and "Blind Man in the Bleachers," unless DG had some equally pathos-laden third hit I'm not aware of.

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

it makes me feel carsick or as though my life is about to end, and it has been wrong in everyway.

i'm amazed it would be played ever, other than as a weapon of mass depression

― b b, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

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