Superman (It's Not Easy)/Five For Fighting

Now through Sunday, Classics Rock! will feature songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Superman (It's Not Easy), from the 2000 album America Town by Five For Fighting (stage name of singer/songwriter John Ondrasik), presents the more vulnerable side of Superman, the comic book hero created in 1932 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics.  This is a superhero who wants us to see his sensitive side: I'm more than a bird...I'm more than a plane/I'm more than some pretty face beside a train/It's not easy to be me.  He takes no joy in his super powers--I can't stand to fly, he states--and feels the same sense of longing that ordinary mortals do: I'm only a man in a funny red sheet/I'm only a man looking for a dream.  The song became a breakthrough hit for Ondrasik, and had particular resonance for audiences following the September 11th attacks.  "Already climbing the charts prior to 9/11, 'Superman' went on to have a life of its own, becoming a song of healing for the nation," according to the Five For Fighting web site.  "While written and released well before 9/11, 'Superman' has endeared Ondrasik to the survivors and families of those lost in that tragedy, as well as to servicemen serving around the world."