Tom Dunne: From Springsteen to my own work, dads in songs can be tricky business 

My own father is glaringly absent from my songs, but even when dads are front and centre in compositions, they don't always fare well 

Tom Dunne's father and mother, Tommy and Bridie, with family members at their wedding in 1947.

Dads get a rough ride in music. They are largely utterly absent (Exhibit A: Harry Chapin's The Cats in the Cradle –“We’ll get together then son”) or smug, all knowing, pr**ks (Exhibit B: Father and Son, by Cat Stevens – “For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not”). There is little middle ground.

And those songs were from a gentler time in music! More contemporary songwriters have tended to be less ambivalent. Martha Wainwright’s paeon to her dad is called Bloody Mother F***ing Asshole. This, on examination, turns out to be a perfect, possibly understated, response to the parenting skills of one Loudon Wainwright III.