What is the song "The Living Years" really about?

Question

I'm thinking about Fathers Day songs, and people like to suggest this Mike & the Mechanics song. Only problem is, the song seems to me to be about the narrator's regret about never getting around to telling his father... to go to hell, basically.

Anyone read the lyrics carefully? "It's too late when we die / To admit we don't see eye to eye" - what the heck does THAT mean? It's something a father and son would already know quite well "in the living years."

Anyone agree or disagree?

I dunno, guys. Everything you're saying is true - I already get the song. Maybe I just think it's lousy poetry. Still, there is one among you truly deserving of 10 points and high praise...

Answer 1

It means you can't hold grudges and be on non speaking terms over something you disagree with, because when that person is gone, you never have a chance to amend a relationship.
(This part-So don't yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different date)

The song isn't dissing his dad, its his regrets, keep listening till it gets to the part about seeing his dad in his newborn baby, and how he wishes he had those living years.
This part-I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Answer 2

It's a song about regret. The writer, who plays guitar for Genisis, (Mike Rutherford) is regretting never having resolved issues he and his father had before his fathers death. Presumably having told his dad to go to hell previously.

Answer 3

Son and father relationship.

Answer 4

it's about a man who diagreed with his father, as a lot of us do, his whole life and only came to appriciate him after it was too late, when his father had died.
the chorus is telling people to talk to their father's before it's too late.