Halestorm
Pull a thread
How 'Cat's in the Cradle' Got Handed Down: Chapin, Cash, Ugly Kid Joe and DMC
A song about a father who never passes anything on has been passed on flawlessly for fifty years — folk to country to metal to hip-hop to sitcom shorthand. The lyric describes a broken relay. The song is a working one.
The words weren’t his
Start with the credit line, because everything else hangs off it.
The lyric to “Cat’s in the Cradle” began as a poem by Sandy Chapin, Harry Chapin’s wife. Two things set it off, and she laid both out in the Chapin family’s own newsletter, Circle (Behind the Song). The first was another family’s silence: her first husband, James Cashmore, and his father John Cashmore, Brooklyn Borough President for 21 years (Wikipedia), barely spoke. Sandy: “During dinner, my father-in-law would speak to his son through me… I just thought it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.” The second was a country song she heard on the radio about how fast childhood goes — “That song put me in the mood for writing a lyric.”
Dear Daughter: How Lzzy Hale Rewired Rock's Parent-to-Child Song
Rock has been writing letters to its kids for fifty years. Halestorm’s ‘Dear Daughter’ is the first one addressed to a child who doesn’t exist — and that’s exactly why it works.
The lineage: rock’s closed letters
There’s a whole branch of the rock family tree that most people never map, because the songs on it don’t sound alike. They’re connected by who they’re written to.
Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” is the structural grandparent — a blessing-list, one wish per line, sealed and handed down. John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” did it for Sean. David Bowie’s “Kooks” did it for Duncan, with a wink. Billy Joel’s “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” did it for Alexa. On the heavier side of the family, Staind’s “Zoe Jane” is the closest hard-rock analogue, and Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open” did it for a son who hadn’t even arrived yet.