The Temptations, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”įrom the 1972 album All Directions, this classic single is about an absent father. The Boss sings, “I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart / Will never again, sir, tear us from each other’s hearts.”
Springsteen had an uneasy relationship with his father, but this song talks about overcoming these difficulties and embracing him.
2 on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1998. The heartbreaking song shows the singer longing for the experience of a father-song relationship: “Bit by bit, I’ve realized,” he sings, “That’s when I need them / That’s when I need my father’s eyes.” The single made it to No. Busta Rhymes sings the sentimental chorus: “But in the end I hope you only turn out better than me / I hope you know I love you young’n, like father, like son.”Ĭlapton wrote this song to parallel looking in the eyes of his son, who died at age four, and the eyes of his father, who he never met. Closing out The Game’s debut album, this emotional song chronicles the birth of the Compton rapper’s son.
