♫ The Living Years ♫ (Redux)

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I am reduxing a song I last played in September 2018, nearly two years ago.  Why?  Because I am exhausted and too tired to dig for trivia, the best version, lyrics, etc. tonight.  Why this one?  Because I like it.

This song is written from the perspective of a son who has a conflicted relationship with his father. After his father dies, he discovers that he and his dad had a much stronger bond than he ever realized, and the son regrets not saying more while his dad was alive.

It was written by group founder Mike Rutherford and the Scottish songwriter B.A. Robertson. Both Robertson and Rutherford had recently lost their fathers when they wrote this song, making it a very personal endeavor for both of them.

The song was written in stages. B.A. Robertson wrote the first verse before his father died in 1986, the same year Rutherford lost his dad. The pair composed the music based on this verse, and then a while later Robertson came up with the second verse. The final verse didn’t come to him until shortly before the song was recorded. Robertson was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles and was under pressure to finish the lyric before flying back to Europe. He recalls going outside to a garden at the hotel when the verse came to him.

Robertson was working with Rutherford when he got the call that his dad had died, which is reflected in the opening lines of this verse:

I wasn’t there that morning
When my father passed away

Three months before his father died, Robertson’s son was born, which we hear in this line:

I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears

The Living Years
Mike & The Mechanics

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my Father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Oh, crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got

You say you just don’t see it
He says it’s perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence

Say it loud (say it loud), say it clear (oh say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late (it’s too late) when we die (oh when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts

So don’t yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in
You may just be okay

So say it loud, say it clear (oh say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
Because it’s too late, it’s too late (it’s too late) when we die (oh when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Say it loud, say it clear (oh say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late (it’s too late) when we die (it’s too late when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

So say it, say it, say it loud (say it loud)
Say it clear (come on say it clear)

Songwriters: B.A. Robertson / Mike Rutherford (gb)
The Living Years lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Concord Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management

24 thoughts on “♫ The Living Years ♫ (Redux)”

      • Oh, I did that right away. Youtube is my goto source of music these days, though I sure wish vinyl would sound the way it used to, but it seems the p.atform does not suppirt the real thing . I don’t know if any computerized music can be as good as my memory. Still, I did enjoy the song, whatever it was. My short term memory fails me in the middle of another sleepless night. Hopefully soon…

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        • Or perhaps our memory of how vinyl sounded is better than the way it actually sounded. Remember how awful it sounded if it got the tiniest scratch, or if the needle was worn? Glad you enjoyed the song, at any rate! And as re email … I’m not ignoring you … I’ll answer soon … just been tied up (no, not literally!)

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          • Nope. We have a radio show up here called Vinyl Cafe, hosted by Randy Bachman ex of Guess Who and BTO, Bachman Turner Overdrive. He plays nothing but vinyl records on an old stereo machine. ?The sound is much fuller on a real radio. Over an MP3 or Ipod, not so much.
            But yeah, our ears aren’t as perceptive as once they were. That will have something to do with it.

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