1. Cat’s in the
Cradle
Is a folk rock song by Harry Chapin

2. What is a Visual Ballad?
• Its is a poem that creates images in our minds
as we read it
• It allows us to visually see what the poem is
saying
• It allows us to use our imagination and
creativity because the poem uses a lot of
descriptive words and imagery

3. The Story
The song is told in first-person by a father who is too busy to spend
time with his son. Though the son repeatedly asks him to join in
childhood activities, the father always responds with little more
than vague promises of spending time together in the future, which
is peppered with images from nursery rhymes. While the son longs
to spend time with his father, he continues to admire his father as a
role model and tells him that he will be just like him when he is an
adult.

4. The third verse shows the son now having his own life in college
and the father now wants to spend time with him. However,
like his father, the son now does not have time for his father,
pursuing his own life.
Years pass and the aging father, who is now retired and free from
the constraints of work, desires yet again to spend time with
his son, who by this time has a family himself. Hoping to
make up for lost time, the father reaches out to him again.

5. The son however has his own life and family to worry about; he
warmly responds that he is now too busy with his own work
and family to spend time with his father.
Like his father once had, the son promises that someday in the
future they will spend time together. The last verses end with
the lines "I'd love to dad if I could find the time/You see my new
job's a hassle and the kids have the flu/But it's sure nice talking
to you, dad … And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to
me/He'd grown up just like me/My boy was just like me …".

6. The father realizes that his son is now giving him vague promises
exactly like he once did to his son. The final line also says that
the son's prediction about growing up to be like his father
came true, although not in a way the father would have liked,
but rather that the son is now making the same promises for
future quality time as his own father once did to him.

7. Techniques used in the Ballad
• Rhyme is used in this ballad examples are
‘day, way and pay’ – ‘spoon and moon’
• Repetition is used in this ballad examples
are "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

8. Visual Ballads and why did we
represent (draw) images as we
did
• story songs that has the music using ones own
imagination for to come up with a word or
imagery story line
• I like songs that paint a real strong visual, one's
where I can picture the characters and place
them in a setting.

9. •
I think my inspiration for the cinematic stems from the fact
that I am also a visual artist; details and adjectives are a good
thing!
• Therefore, we can say that Cats in the Cradle create visual
images because of the use of detail and adjectives
• The ballad created images as it told a story about a father and
son and what they experienced
• The Cats in the cradle plays with our emotions and feelings
which allow us to represent how we feel

10. •
I think my inspiration for the cinematic stems from the fact
that I am also a visual artist; details and adjectives are a good
thing!
• Therefore, we can say that Cats in the Cradle create visual
images because of the use of detail and adjectives
• The ballad created images as it told a story about a father and
son and what they experienced
• The Cats in the cradle plays with our emotions and feelings
which allow us to represent how we feel