"Like Father Like Son" is the ninth song of Elton John and Tim Rice's musical Aida.
The song was about an argument between Radames and Zoser. Radames had fallen in love with a Nubian slave and Zoser warned his son that doing so could cost him his right as Pharaoh. Radames insisted he does not care, and went too far to denounce his father.
Lyrics
Don't come on so cocksure boy
You can't escape your genes
No point in feeling purer boy
Your background intervenes
Listen good and listen straight
You're not the master of your fate
To this you must be reconciled
You'll always be your father's child
At times acclaimed, at times reviled
You wind up doing just what I've done
Like father, like son
Like father, like son
Don't assume your vices
Get handed down the line
That a parent's blood suffices
To condemn the child's design
I've done wrong, I can't deny
But at least I know that I
Shouldn't blame that on my stock
This may come as a quite a shock
I'm no chip off any block
I wouldn't wish those words on anyone
Like father, like son
Like father, like son
He's lost all sense of reason
And why some filthy slave
That is the road called treason
That winds up in the grave
Just like me, he's found out a flesh
Can excite but will it mesh
Watch me rid him of this blight
Once this harlot's out of sight
Then I think he will see the light
He won't walk back to daddy, he will run
Like father, like son
Like father, like son
Like father, like son