TotW 01/04/2020 - 01/10/2020: GENESIS - No Son Of Mine

  • Getting back to the lyric, there's a very minor thing that makes me smile as it brings to mind my English teacher Mr Jeffries. He advised against ambiguity, such as "I scratched my head with my dog by my side." He'd point out you weren't literally using the dog by your side to scratch your head. Similarly - "I rang the bell with my heart in my mouth" would've had him asking if the narrator had his heart clenched between his teeth while pushing it against the doorbell.

    "This morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. What it was doing in my pyjamas, I'll never know." Groucho Marx.


    I don't think the rules that apply to writing literature apply to poetry or song. There's a raft of lyrics out there that one could easily pick apart if they were to subject them to the rules espoused by Strunk and White :)

  • It’s a latter day classic. A stunning piece of work musically and lyrically. It’s one of the best examples of their later, more economical, writing, whereby the song lasts just as long as it needs to and the music is straightforward but complex enough to carry the emotion of a deep story. It also benefits in reflecting the fact that in some life situations, things do not resolve. It feels like a like a long song in a short format.

    • Official Post

    Absolutely fair enough in your acquaintance's case I'm sure, but not everyone is cut from that same cloth. To pick up on the comment from FeelItComing I've equally known a couple of people with past experience of abuse who have felt compelled to see the abusive relative again. As mentioned, the feelings and motivations of the survivors can be very complex and, to the rest of us, baffling but it does happen. Again, as FIC said, family bonds can sometimes remain strong and pull the survivor back in even with such horrible past events.


    And I've known of survivors who left the first second they possibly could, never to return.


    Humans are complicated...

    I’ve always took the song as domestic abuse. Like when he says, I couldn’t stand to hear the cry of my mother and I remember when…. I always thought the dad was beating the mom, and he left home. That was my thinking as a 12 year old, for right or wrong. I always loved the emotion in this song, although sad to listen to. A father/son relationship should be unbreakable.