Harry Chapin - Cat's in the Cradle Song Meanings
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anonymous
April 3rd, 2007 05:02PM
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The son doesn't only represent the child. He also represents the family as a whole. The father is too busy with work and doesn't have the time to spend with his family. As the lyrics say "the cats in the cradle" - the family is at home - "and the silver spoon" which is a symbol of wealth the father has to earn. The "little boy blue" is the child that is sad because his father is away, while the father is represented by "the man on the moon" - the one far away who is unreachable, idealized by the child who sees the father as his male role model. So this is the metaphorical way of describing the pairs of opposition the song is talking about. The family which is in contrast to work and the sad and left-alone boy in contrast to his never-having-time-for-him father and role model.
The songs intention is to make the listener think about the balance of time spend with the family/children and the time spend with earning the money and gaining wealth. At the end of the song the father realizes that the way he lived was unbalanced and that he wasn't a good role model for his son and this is the reason why the now grown up boy became like his father once was, with little time for his family (which his father is a part of).
This balancing is the problem each generation is facing and the reason why the listener feels so attached to this song. It's the wish of parents to spend more time with their children and the lack of chances to do so. It's a criticism to society.
anonymous
November 26th, 2005 10:19PM
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This is a song about a man who neglects his son throughout the boy's childhood. The man is always too busy with himself. Times change and the man has more free time (I've long sinced retired, my son has moved away)and wishes to now have a relationship with his son. He comes to learn that his son is wrapped up in his own life and has no time for him (the father). Lots of people only understand the first part of the meaning - that the father is reaping what he sowed. The second, less conveyed meaning, is the father's realization that he's taught his son this neglect. He realizes he has doomed his son to a life of neglecting his own children. The saddest part of the song is when it is said "As I hung up the phone it occured to me he'd grown up just like me, my boy was just like me." This line conveys the father's realizations and sadness of what he has passed down to his son.
anonymous
August 10th, 2009 12:54AM
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In the first two verses we see the son growing up without his father, and the thing he wants more than anything else is to spend time with his father. By the time he's twenty, he's developed a coping mechanism to this life of neglect- he stops wanting to spend time with his father. So now that his father has time for him, he's not interested; he'd rather spend time cruising with his friends. When the son is thirty, married with kids, he comes to realize the folly of this ("love to dad if I could find the time"), but now he doesn't have any time for his father, because his own responsibilities take priority.
anonymous
October 13th, 2009 05:23PM
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I think this song is about investments... the young boy wants to spend time with his father and he idealizes him. Over the course of time the son is growing up and the father then wants to spend time with him. Since the young man has no prior frame of reference for who is father is... it is hard for him to see the value of spending time with his dad since his dad did not value the relationship in the beginning. When you make an investment into a relationship the bigger the investment the greater the return will be. I think this is truly saddest for the father. I don't think the son turned out just like his dad, he hopefully saw his dad's failures and learned from them and tried to be a better father to his children. The son reciprocated how much he valued his relationship with father as he perceived his father's value of thier relationship and he matched it. Relationships take work and time and they usually get better the more time that is invested into them.
Toompz
October 21st, 2009 10:26PM
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Love this song. This song give the thought of "goes around comes around"
anonymous
October 28th, 2009 12:32PM
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"The cats in the cradle" A child's game..metaphor: BABY
"and the silver spoon": Wealth, provider...metaphor: DAD
"Little boy blue" Metaphor: sad boy
"man on the moon" Metaphor: distant dad
anonymous
January 4th, 2010 01:05PM
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little boy is missing his dad's presence. He doesn't feel at home because of that.His heart is empty like his cradle.The cats occupied the cradle because it was left empty.
In the same way at the end the father is missing his son's presence and feels the same way. Here we can compare cradle with a home. Because the father misses his son's presence he has to share his time with cats at home.
Here I took cat as a cat to interpret as a wrong thing in a right place.
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