Harry Chapin vs. Lennon-McCartney

I always hated that Harry Chapin song 'Cat's in the Cradle'. You know the one about the dad who's too busy to spend time with his kid.

And the reason I hate it is because it's a one-note 'in your face' Hallmark card. Everything is spelled out for you. It's like a damn movie script complete with dialog. No room for interpretation.

Compare it to the Beatles' 'She Leaving Home'. Same parent/child alienation theme. But in the Beatles' song, it's all very obscure and unfolds like a great poem or short story. Taking the lyrics literally, she's leaving home because she didn't have 'fun', but we know it's much deeper than that.

The Beatles' always had that kind of sophistication, even in a song like 'All You Need is Love', which on the surface appears to be nothing more than a flower-power anthem. But dig down into the lyrics in the verses and there's a lot of word-play and complex ideas. And the wacky time signature doesn't hurt either in terms of it being more high-brow than a Harry Chapin-type tune.