I WOULD consider it normal for a four-year-old whose father is distant and unhlepful around the house. He doesn't need to be PHYSICALLY abusive to mummy. All he has to do is "shout" "loud" at her. And he doesn't have to actually be mean. He just has to be a bit clueless, and unwilling to share in household (or parenting?) repsonsibilities.

The dad in this song is just this type of distant person, and the boy singing it already figures--at the age of four--that he'll be a better husband than his father. So he kind of dreams of marrying his mum and then letting daddy do the washing up--jsut to give daddy a tast of his own medicine.

Don't know if David's father was this way. I suspect he wasn't much help around the house--most men of his generation (and sadly, even our OWN generation) weren't. He may have been somewhat emotionally distant, too, though, as most men of his time felt their primary contribution as a father was to hold down a job and bring home enough money so that mummy could raise the kids. In real life, I have heard David was very close to his father, though, and that most of the emotional distance in his upbringing came from his mother.

Interestingly, I don't recall anythign derogatory said in the When I'm Five lyrics about mummy. And I'm sure that if it were completely autobigraphical, David would have gotten a few punches in.

So, overall, I don't think he excluded the song from the anthology becuase it was "deeply personal." I think the presumed "good" mummy, alone, ensures this song is NOT entirely autobiographical.

Love the song, though. It actually SOUNDS like the kind of things four-year-olds think about--at least to me. Maybe that's because I had a shit childhood on a number of levels.

zigbot