Father To Son (1985) – The Alarm

(Part One of the Damned If You Work and Damned If You Don’t hexology)

Mike Peters portrays the angst of a teenager whose father expects him to find a sensible job, perhaps in the steel mill that paid the family’s living wage for so many years. The boy refuses to accept the same dead-end routine that eviscerated his father’s spirit. Instead, with dreams of making a name for himself, he plans to move to the big city. However, his family expects him to provide financial support, especially in light of his father’s impending retirement and the dire state of the economy. Impetuously, the boy leaves town against his father’s wishes for the auspicious embrace of metropolis. Once there, he finds his opportunities meager; his future, less than stellar. So, he heads elsewhere. This soon becomes a pattern of pavement-pounding futility and itinerate frustration. Realizing that his aspirations of fame and fortune were overambitious, he’s now desperate to find anything that would approximate even the modest standard of living to which he was accustomed back home. With Dave Sharp’s restless guitar protesting in the right channel, and a piano/bass-heavy march that would do Madness proud, “Father To Son” soberly cautions risk-takers that the old adage, “You can do anything if you put your mind to it,” sometimes proves to be the stuff of old wives’ tales.

Listen to "Father To Son" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.