Phil Collins / Tarzan (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) / 1999
Son of Man
uplifting, earnest, inspirational
A coming-of-age anthem written for Disney's Tarzan, tracking a young protagonist's growth from boyhood into adulthood through the language of journey, inheritance, and self-discovery. It functions as a montage song, compressing years of maturation into a few verses of encouragement rather than narrating specific events.
coming of age self-reliance identity and belonging mentorship and its absence destiny
Who's speaking
An unnamed, almost choral narrator addresses a young man directly in second person, functioning like a guiding voice or inner conscience rather than a specific character; the tone is wholly sincere, with no irony or unreliability.
What happens
The song opens by promising that strength and wisdom will come with time, then moves through the idea of a solitary climb undertaken without guidance, before arriving at a reciprocal model of learning and teaching, and closes with the claim that fulfillment and recognition are imminent and earned.
How it's built
Built on a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure with a wordless vocalizing outro that functions as a victory lap. The chorus is a fixed refrain that doesn't develop lyrically, so progression happens entirely in the verses, which move from future promise to admission of isolation to a resolved, communal sense of purpose.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song begins in pure promise, listing abstract virtues that will eventually belong to the listener. There's no conflict yet, only a forward-looking assurance that sets up the rest of the song as a kind of prophecy.3
First chorus
“a man in time you'll be”
The refrain frames maturity as inevitable rather than earned through specific trials, which suits the film's montage function but keeps the lyric emotionally general rather than psychologically particular.
Second verse
“no one there to guide you”
This is the song's most vulnerable moment, acknowledging isolation and the absence of mentorship. It briefly complicates the uplift of the chorus before resolving into reassurance via faith and understanding, which softens rather than confronts the loneliness.
Third verse
The chiastic line about learning and teaching marks a subtle shift from solitary ascent to relational growth, suggesting that selfhood is completed through community rather than isolated achievement alone.
Outro
“a man for all to see”
The closing wordless vocalizing and final declarative line shift the song from private journey to public arrival, framing identity as something ultimately validated by others' recognition.
Craft
- apostrophe
- The repeated direct address to 'son of man' turns the song into a kind of benediction or rite of passage spoken over the listener/character, giving it a ceremonial, almost liturgical tone.
- chiasmus
- The line pairing learning with teaching and teaching with learning sets up a mirrored structure that enacts the reciprocity it describes, making growth sound cyclical rather than linear.
- natural/vertical imagery
- Mountains, peaks, and looking to the sky recur as spatial metaphors for aspiration and achievement, mapping emotional maturity onto physical ascent.
- anaphora
- The chorus's repeated 'son of man' openings create a chant-like insistence that reinforces the song's function as reassurance and anointing.
Reading it
Most straightforwardly, the song is a generic rite-of-passage anthem designed to accompany Tarzan's visual transformation from child to adult in the film, prioritizing broad emotional accessibility over lyrical specificity. A secondary reading treats the absent guide and solitary climb as resonant with Tarzan's particular situation, raised without his own kind, which gives the otherwise generic imagery a quietly literal edge the film audience would recognize even though the song itself names no character or place.
Context
Written for the 1999 Disney animated film Tarzan, where it scores a sequence depicting the title character's growth; it functions within the soundtrack alongside other Collins songs, several of which take a first-person or narrator stance tied closely to Tarzan's circumstances. I don't have reliable detail on the specific session or chart history for this track beyond its soundtrack placement.
Listen for
- the shift from future-tense promise in the verses to the fixed, unchanging chorus refrain
- the brief tonal dip when the lyric admits there's no one to guide the protagonist
- the chiastic learning/teaching line as the hinge where the song moves from solitary to communal framing
- the wordless vocal outro functioning as a non-verbal climax
- how the vertical imagery of climbing and looking skyward recurs to mark progress
About Phil Collins
Philip David Charles Collins is an English singer, drummer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is best known as the drummer and later lead vocalist of the rock band Genesis, and for his highly successful career as a solo artist.
b. 1951 / United Kingdom
Full biography and catalogue