I am exhausted tonight, having expended all my energy and emotion on my rant post earlier this morning, so I am … taking the easy way out … and reblogging one that I last played in 2018. Still a great song three years later! 😉
Every now and again, I wax nostalgic and seek those songs that tend to bring tears near to the surface. Tonight is one of those nights, and rather than be nostalgic and and teary-eyed all by myself, I thought to share the joy (?) with you, my friends.
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
This song really has life in it. Thank you for sharing, Jill! Enjoy your weekend! If you are living oh the second floor, please dont stomp too much. On Saturday they in the first want to sleep some hours more. Lol Michael
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I’m glad you liked it, Michael! I plan to enjoy the weekend — no cooking for me! The girls (my daughter and granddaughter) do the cooking on weekends, so I get a break! I live in a two-story townhouse, so if I’m on the second floor and stomp, the only people who would hear me are the girls. Now, if I pound on the walls, as my neighbors sometimes do, then I would get an angry knock on the door! 😉
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Jill, this is a very poignant and powerful song. Keith
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Definitely so!
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A superb song, from two great songwriters.
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So glad you liked it, my friend!
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Yes, it is a great song three years later, Jill.
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Well, it might not have been … remember that song by Dinah Washington, “What a Difference a Day Makes”?
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24 little hours.
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This song is like an anthem to me, not because it applies to me, although it does to a small extent, but because I see the passion and hostility many people hold towards perspectives different to their own and how they convey that hostility to the holder of those different perspectives.
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I think it can apply to most of us to one extent or another. We take for granted that those we love will always be there, until … one day they aren’t. Did we let them know how much we cared while we could? I’m so glad you liked the song!
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I remember the song. It’s lovely. I’m so glad my parents got to see and enjoy my children. My son was about four and my daughter two and a half when my dad died. My mother died about ten years later but had Alzheimer’s. Thanks, Jill. 🙂 — Suzanne
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I’m so glad you enjoyed the song, Suzanne. My parents barely knew my children, but it was their own doing, for they did not like the man I married and thought to ‘punish’ me by having little to do with me or my kids. It was their loss. Families can be strange things sometimes.
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What a shame. That’s a version of cutting off the nose to spite the face. A person can’t possibly win in that situation. 😦 — Suzanne
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I agree. It happens in so many families, and they don’t realize until it’s too late, how much they’ve missed.
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This one conveys those emotions many men carry because they don’t easily display emotion with their fathers. It’s a classic tug at the heartstrings now but an all too real situation. It’s good to know the hidden depths of well-known writer/singer of humorous songs B.A. Robertson. Mike Rutherford’s history with Genesis speaks for itself.
Cwtch
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Isn’t it odd that men are expected to “keep a stiff upper lip”, not show emotions, and then we complain that they are without emotions. I love this song, as much for the tune as the lyrics. Glad you enjoyed it, too!
Cwtch
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