I had always dismissed this song. I love Journey, but you generally don't expect much depth from them. I mean, she's a small town girl living in a lonely world. I dig it. They're lyrics are hot metal and oil. The sound of an engine revving. You get some pretty direct symbols like a wheel in the sky. Yeah, it keeps turning...as you're on the road...
Anyway, I didn't care for this one because I didn't think it was saying much. Then one day something hit me from the lyrics. So first you have the description of the mother sitting alone and staring. Then the father, despite his dreams he's drinking his life away.
I don't think they're necessarily divorced. Back then divorce was fairly uncommon. They could be divorced, but it's really not necessary. They're broken, no question there.
I don't think their problem is with each other. The mother asks where she went wrong. That's a typical question of a parent. The father's verse expresses that it should not end this way. That's the regret of a parent. Also, the narrator of the song references them as mother and father, not husband, wife, or lover. No, this is not centering around their marriage, it's centering around their kids.
So who is the narrator? Well, he addresses mother, father, and sister. That last one is interesting because as near as I can tell she doesn't get any other reference in the song. He also references himself as the seventh son. I had always considered that seventh son bit to be a throwaway...but I think it's actually the part that made me see the whole song differently.
Here's the key verse:
Don't you know that I'm alive for you
I'm your sevenths son
What is a seventh son? It's not the prodigal son, with respect to a previous poster. There is no indication in that story that there are more than two sons. It could be King David, Moses, or Enoch. These are the greatest figures of the Old Testament and are considered seventh sons. Even more compelling though I think is the idea that in American Folklore the seventh son of a seventh son could do magic...or miracles.
The son is dead. I don't know for sure what happened, but I think there are clues in the descriptions of the mother and father. She's staring vacantly and he's drinking his life away and it shouldn't end like this. There is nothing worse I can think of than to lose a child. She wonders where she went wrong. And he has one photograph with broken glass. This suggests some kind of violence, whether he punched the picture or threw it, or something else was thrown or slammed. There was some terrible moment in this family, and at the end of it the son is dead. Perhaps he drove away emotionally and there was an accident. Perhaps something worse happened.
But in typical Journey literalism, the son is speaking from beyond the grave and reassuring his family that there is a solution. He is alive for them. They should have faith, and believe...because he is the seventh son and the seventh son can work miracles.
I had always dismissed this song. I love Journey, but you generally don't expect much depth from them. I mean, she's a small town girl living in a lonely world. I dig it. They're lyrics are hot metal and oil. The sound of an engine revving. You get some pretty direct symbols like a wheel in the sky. Yeah, it keeps turning...as you're on the road...
Anyway, I didn't care for this one because I didn't think it was saying much. Then one day something hit me from the lyrics. So first you have the description of the mother sitting alone and staring. Then the father, despite his dreams he's drinking his life away.
I don't think they're necessarily divorced. Back then divorce was fairly uncommon. They could be divorced, but it's really not necessary. They're broken, no question there.
I don't think their problem is with each other. The mother asks where she went wrong. That's a typical question of a parent. The father's verse expresses that it should not end this way. That's the regret of a parent. Also, the narrator of the song references them as mother and father, not husband, wife, or lover. No, this is not centering around their marriage, it's centering around their kids.
So who is the narrator? Well, he addresses mother, father, and sister. That last one is interesting because as near as I can tell she doesn't get any other reference in the song. He also references himself as the seventh son. I had always considered that seventh son bit to be a throwaway...but I think it's actually the part that made me see the whole song differently.
Here's the key verse: Don't you know that I'm alive for you I'm your sevenths son
What is a seventh son? It's not the prodigal son, with respect to a previous poster. There is no indication in that story that there are more than two sons. It could be King David, Moses, or Enoch. These are the greatest figures of the Old Testament and are considered seventh sons. Even more compelling though I think is the idea that in American Folklore the seventh son of a seventh son could do magic...or miracles.
The son is dead. I don't know for sure what happened, but I think there are clues in the descriptions of the mother and father. She's staring vacantly and he's drinking his life away and it shouldn't end like this. There is nothing worse I can think of than to lose a child. She wonders where she went wrong. And he has one photograph with broken glass. This suggests some kind of violence, whether he punched the picture or threw it, or something else was thrown or slammed. There was some terrible moment in this family, and at the end of it the son is dead. Perhaps he drove away emotionally and there was an accident. Perhaps something worse happened.
But in typical Journey literalism, the son is speaking from beyond the grave and reassuring his family that there is a solution. He is alive for them. They should have faith, and believe...because he is the seventh son and the seventh son can work miracles.