Cat's In The Cradle

Album

Verities & Balderdash

Label

Elektra Records

Genre

Folk rock

Composer(s)

Harry Chapin,Sandy Chapin

Entered Chart

Oct 5, 1974

Peak Date

Dec 21, 1974

Released

October 1, 1974

Recorded

1974 Studio Connecticut Recording Studios, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Catalog #

Elektra 45203

B-Side

Vacancy

This heartbreaking song tells of a father and son who can't schedule time to be with each other, and it serves as a warning against putting one's career before family. The verses start out with a natural harmony and depict the tale of a father with his newborn son. Although dad gets the necessities of child rearing accomplished, he doesn't allow himself to put in quality time with his son because of his career. Initially, this seems like no big deal because of his hectic and oblivious life working and paying bills. The recurring verse has the son saying, "I'm gonna be like you Dad, you know I'm gonna be like you..." Over time, both father and son grow into a switching of life roles. The father realizes his son's ambitions of college, grades, and driving, and wants to spend more time with him, yet slowly grasps the reality that now his son has no time for such things. In the last verse, Chapin illustrates that the son is all grown up with a fast-paced job and kids of his own. In a glaring twist of roles, we see that the son now has no time to spend with his father. With a heavy heart, dad realizes that his boy has become just like him. This song is based on a poem that Harry's wife Sandy wrote. She told Songfacts: "'Cat's In The Cradle' was a combination of a couple of things. Whenever I was on a long drive I would listen to country music, because words would keep me awake more than just music. And I heard a song… I can remember the story, but I don't remember who sang it or what the title was, but an old couple were sitting at their breakfast table and looking out the window, and they saw the rusted swing and the sandbox, and they were reminiscing about the good old days when all the children were around and then the grandchildren, and how it passed, and now it's all gone. The other part of the idea – this is always a problem, because Harry introduced the song at all his concerts and said, 'This is a song my wife wrote to zap me because I wasn't home when our son Josh was born.' I was always kind of amused by that because of the fact that we learn life's lessons too late. We don't learn lessons before the fact. We don't have a child born and then have all this wisdom. So I always thought it was interesting the way he told the story. But I learned the story because my [first] husband was going to New York to be a lawyer, and I had a teaching job in New York. While we were apartment hunting, we were living with his parents in Brooklyn. His father was the borough president of Brooklyn at the time, which I think was a much more important job than it is today. But every day when he got home from work, he would start talking to his son about, 'It'd be great if you'd go down to the club on Tuesday night, I'd like to introduce you to some of the people I know,' and so forth. And he started trying to engineer a career for him which leads to politics. They did not have any relationship or communication because they had been so busy until his son went off to college and was gone. I don't remember exactly how, but he started talking to me. My father-in-law would say me, even though we were all in the same room, 'Tell Jimmy I would like to see him down at the clubhouse on Tuesday.' It was really very strange. So this is the way the evenings went. The conversation was going through me. So I realized what had happened. You know, relationships and characters and personalities and all those things are formed by two, so I realized that that hadn't happened. And it was very jerky at that stage. So I observed something that gave me the idea for the song." It took the birth of his son for Harry Chapin to decide to turn the poem his wife wrote into a song. Sandy Chapin explained in her Songfacts interview: "Harry and I would exchange writing of all kinds. We were always working on each other's writing. Some of my writing at a certain period were 20-page papers for a doctoral program at Columbia. So it wasn't always that poetic. But we both looked at each other's stuff. And then one time he came home and he said, 'What have you been doing?' I showed him 'Cat's In The Cradle,' and he said, 'Well, that's interesting.' You know, sometimes he'd pick up something and put music to it. And that didn't really grab him at all. And then after Josh was born, it did. He picked it up and he wrote music to it." Sandy Chapin runs the Harry Chapin Foundation, which does what it can to continue supporting the causes Harry championed when he was alive. While Sandy does a lot of work for the foundation, her focus is her family and her role as an on-call grandmother for six grandchildren. As can be expected of the woman who wrote "Cat's In The Cradle," she values the time she can spend with them while they are still young. In her 2009 Songfacts interview, she said: "The eldest of the six has just gone into 6th grade, which means not only does she live in a community where the kids grow up fast, but now she's in a middle school where everybody thinks they're teenagers and ought to be in high school. So you know, you have to grab those years. It used to be when I would drive up to the house, she would jump out and run and greet me, and say, 'Grandma, what's the project for today?' Because I would always bring some arts and crafts. We'd make Thanksgiving place cards, or Christmas tree ornaments. But all through the year I was always doing projects with them. So now she's answering her e-mail, she's on her cell phone and doing dates, walking around town with her friends, being a grownup, and doing all the after school activities. You have to grab that chance when you have it." The message about procrastination and missed opportunities makes this song an excellent parable for use in church sermons, where it remains very popular. Report this ad Harry Chapin included various symbols of childhood in the lyrics as reminders of how quickly it ends. "Cat's Cradle" is a game played with string, "Silver Spoons" are ornamental spoons for babies, and "Little Boy Blue" is a nursery rhyme. "Man In The Moon" could be about the human features children see when they look at the moon. This song was used for a commercial in Northern Ireland about the troubles at the time. In the spot, a father is involved in one of the political groups and he isn't much of an example for his son (flash back father with gun running into house terrorizing family of opposite religion, etc.). Because of this the kid ends of following in his foot steps. It tried to send the message that following a bad example can become a vicious circle and unless we change, the troubles will never go away and our children will suffer. >> There have been many cover versions of this song, but the only one to chart is by Ugly Kid Joe, a puckish rock band known for their novelty hit "Everything About You." Released as a single from their 1992 album America's Least Wanted, their rendition went to #6 US and #7 UK (the only UK chart entry for the song; Chapin's version didn't chart anywhere in Europe). In their remake, Ugly Kid Joe changed the lyric "Man in the moon" to "Man ON the moon," apparently thinking the song was referring to Neil Armstrong's 1969 lunar landing. Another tweak: their version is titled "Cats In The Cradle," without the apostrophe. This indicates that there is more than one cat in the cradle, but it's unlikely the band was concerned with the vagaries of grammar. Ugly Kid Joe's version is earnest, however. When Songfacts spoke with their lead singer Whitfield Crane, he said, "That song means a lot to me just because of my childhood." The video for the Ugly Kid Joe version was directed by Matt Mahurin, an illustrator whose work has appeared in many high-profile magazines. Mahurin was shooting a lot of music videos around this time, including clips for Alice in Chains ("No Excuses") and Soundgarden ("Outshined"). For the "Cats in the Cradle" video, Mahurin shows the boy growing into a man, ending with a shot of the father old and lonely. It's an elegant and touching portrayal of the song, with lots of cinematic slow-motion footage. The scenes where Whitfield Crane is singing were shot in Mahurin's game room - he had Crane sit on the pool table and sing. They had what they needed after one take. This song plays throughout a Nissan commercial that debuted during the 2015 Super Bowl (between the Patriots and Seahawks). In the spot, a champion race car driver spends most of his time away from home and rarely sees his son. At the end of the commercial, he shows up in a Nissan to surprise his now-teenaged son. We found the ad troubling for two reasons: 1) The idea that an absentee father can show up late in his child's life and all will be forgiven. 2) At one point in the commercial, the driver survives a crash. Chapin was killed in a car accident. Still, any time the song is used in a commercial, Chapin's estate gets paid, which ultimately benefits his foundation. This was used in The Office episode "St. Patrick's Day" from season 6. Dwight sings along with it to taunt Jim, who has just returned to work from paternity leave. It was also used in these TV shows: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia ("PTSDee" - 2017) Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life ("Winter" - 2016) The Goldbergs ("In Conclusion, Thanksgiving" - 2015) Modern Family ("A Slight At The Opera" - 2013) Cougar Town ("Wake Up Time" - 2010) How I Met Your Mother ("Not A Father's Day" - 2008) Scrubs ("My Unicorn" - 2004) That '70s Show ("The Career Day" - 1999) And in these movies: Last Vegas (2013) Shrek The Third (2007) Mr. Jealousy (1997) This was also used in three episodes of The Simpsons: "Saturdays Of Thunder" (1991), "Bart's Girlfriend" (1994), and "Labor Pains" (2013). In "Saturdays of Thunder," Homer (who realizes he had been a lax father to Bart) breaks down in tears when it's used as holding music on the "Neglectful Father Helpline."

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talking 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you, dad"
"You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, thanks for the ball, dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw, I said-a, not today
I got a lot to do, he said, that's okay
And he, he walked away, but his smile never dimmed
It said, I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?
He shook his head, and he said with a smile
What I'd really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get together then, dad
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, I'd like to see you if you don't mind
He said, I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time
You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, dad
It's been sure nice talking to you
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get together then, dad
We're gonna have a good time then