My dad was an electrical engineer.

The words of John Cooper Clarke—“My dad was an electrical engineer”—may seem, at first glance, to be a simple remembrance, an ordinary fact about one’s parent. Yet beneath this simplicity lies a reflection as profound as any ancient teaching: it is the acknowledgment that we are shaped by the unseen hands of those who came before us. The father, a man of circuits and precision, becomes a symbol of logic, discipline, and creation—the quiet architect of the son’s world. In these few words, Clarke pays homage not merely to a profession, but to an inheritance of thought and spirit.

The electrical engineer stands as one who brings order to chaos, who tames the invisible currents that hum through the air, unseen but essential. Such was the calling of Clarke’s father—a builder of pathways for energy, a craftsman of light in a world that would otherwise remain dim. In honoring his father’s work, Clarke speaks to the ancient truth that every generation stands upon the labor of the one before it. The poet’s rhythm and the engineer’s circuit, though seemingly different, share a single purpose: to channel power with precision—one through words, the other through wires.

Throughout history, the bond between creator and creation, parent and child, has carried this sacred pattern. Consider Michelangelo, whose father wished for him to enter commerce, not art. Yet even in resistance, the son inherited something from the father—a sense of discipline, of structure, of shaping material with deliberate intent. Thus, the sculptor’s marble became as measured and exact as the merchant’s ledger. Likewise, Clarke, the poet of punk and rebellion, inherited from the engineer-father the architecture of control, the rhythm of function, the spark of design that guided his words into precision instead of chaos.

There is something deeply heroic in the quiet craftsman who builds not for glory, but for stability. The fathers of the world, whether engineers, laborers, teachers, or farmers, create the foundation upon which their children dream. Clarke’s recollection is not boastful, but reverent—it is the song of gratitude for the man who worked with currents and cables so that his son could work with ideas and verse. It is a reminder that genius does not arise from nothing; it is born from heritage, from the hum of the workshop and the patience of hands that toil unseen.

In this reflection, we also find the timeless balance between logic and art, structure and chaos, the material and the spiritual. Clarke’s father shaped energy; his son shaped language. Yet both shared a mastery over the unseen forces that move the world. Electricity and poetry are kin—they both seek to illuminate, to reveal what lies hidden in shadow. To remember one’s father in such a way is to understand that all acts of creation—scientific or poetic—are part of the same divine continuum.

We must take this lesson to heart: honor your origins, even when your path diverges from them. For every artist carries within them the craft of their ancestors; every dreamer is the continuation of someone’s labor. Too often, people seek to invent themselves entirely anew, forgetting that greatness grows not from isolation but from inheritance. Clarke’s simple sentence reminds us that remembrance is power—that the light of one generation becomes the warmth of the next.

Let these words be passed down as wisdom for the ages: Never disdain humble beginnings, nor the quiet work of those who came before you. For even the poet of rebellion carries the legacy of the engineer’s precision. And if your father worked with wires and voltage, and you now work with dreams and words, know this—the current is the same. It flows through blood, through time, through love, and it binds all creation together. Thus, when you speak of your lineage, speak as Clarke did—with reverence. Say not only what your father did, but what he gave—a pattern, a light, a rhythm that still hums within your soul.