CD Odyssey Disc 427: Cat Stevens

Last night I was at the art gallery and had a chance to view a collection of paintings by William Kurelek.  I was absolutely overwhelmed by this painter’s ability to blend the stark and beautiful landscapes of Canada with apocalyptic visions and genuinely troubled self-exploration.  Go check him out if you get a chance.  And now, back to music.

Disc 427 is…Greatest Hits

Artist: Cat Stevens

Year of Release: 1975, but featuring music from 1970-1975

What’s up with the Cover?  Cat Stevens flies his own flag.  Cat is a tranquil and wise looking guy and it’s easy to see how he could create the hippy music of his day so well.  That splash of colour behind his shoulders makes him look a little bit like a youthful version of comic book hero Dr. Strange – another wise figure from the seventies.

How I Came To Know It: I had heard Cat Stevens on and off on AM radio for years, but I think the first time I heard this album was when my friend Curt brought it over to the house one day in the mid-eighties (it belonged to his parents).  Curt thought Cat was OK, but I loved it, and it wasn’t long after CDs came out that I bought it in that format.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a greatest hits album, and for reasons oft-stated on A Creative Maelstrom, do not stack up.

Rating: n/a.  Greatest hits records don’t get rated!

All you need is love.  The Beatles said it, but Cat Stevens made us believe it.  His songs preach forgiveness and understanding and he sings them with such conviction that you can’t help but take their advice.

Cat’s voice is gentle and natural.  He always sounds like he’s sitting across the fire from you at some outdoor summer party, rather than a record studio.  He sings high and clear like a breeze coming off the shore of the ocean.  When he ‘rocks out’ as he does from time to time, that voice becomes a bit more staccato but even when Cat is barking at you, it is a gentle barking.

As a composer, the songs represented on this record could serve as a handbook on how to write a melody, construct a song, and make all the right instrumentation decisions.  I don’t know how hard Cat Stevens worked at all of these things, but the amazing thing is how easy it seems for him.

Even when the songs are sad, like the famous “Wild World” they are still uplifting.  Cat turns a song about being dumped and turns it into a song about forgiveness and the importance to part on good terms.

“Now that I’ve lost everything to you

You say you want to start something new

And it’s breaking my heart you’re leaving, baby, I’m grieving

But if you wanna leave, take good care

Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear

But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there.”

It would be easy for the cynical to listen to read these lyrics from “Wild World” and see them as very passive aggressive.  But when you listen to Cat sing it is hard to hear that in his voice.  He just sounds grieved and trying to wish someone well through the grief. 

“Wild World” is off the 1970 classic “Tea for the Tillerman.”  That album brings me back to a wonderful woman I met in 4^th year university.  Well, actually she met me – just walking up to me in psych class and introducing herself.  Shortly thereafter we were dating.  One night I remember just sitting with her and her friend in a cramped apartment while she intricately braided the other girl’s hair as we listened to “Tea for the Tillerman” The experience was a lot like Cat Stevens’ music; it sounds a bit hackneyed talking about it, but when you’re immersed in it, your spirit is strangely lifted.  Eventually we broke up (she met a man who shared her love of hiking and had ‘stars in his eyes’).  I’ve never had such a free, easy and blame free break up.  Cat would be proud.

In songs like “Father & Son” and “Can’t Keep It In” Cat tackles the reckless dreams of youth (thank you, Neil Peart).  When you hear these songs at an early age they put a voice to all your burning desires and yearnings to get out into the world and do your part (and in “Father & Son” the cynical but insightful response of experience).  At the age of forty-two, and still chasing a few of those dreams of youth, these songs still speak to me and help put some more gas in the tank for the miles yet to come.

Even songs that seem like they should now be dated for other reasons, like “Peace Train” are still as relevant today as they were in the middle of the Cold War, when I first heard them.  When Cat sings:

“’Cause out on the edge of darkness/There rides the peace train

Oh peace train – take this country/Come take me home again.”

Complete with handclaps and backup singers singing ‘oh wee oh-ooh yaw’ it would be easy to imagine over-reaching hippy schmaltz.  That would be a mistake.  When you listen to Cat Stevens sing about world peace, you can actually envision world peace as a possibility, even if it is for only three minutes and forty four seconds.  It may not seem like much, but world peace is hard to come by.  I’ll take it in segments of 3:44 if that’s all I can get.

Lest I wax over-poetic, I will point out that this album has a couple of genuine stinkers.  “Another Saturday Night” is a gimmick song that is composed like a children’s song and represents all of the worst of ‘office reception radio.’  “Two Fine People” is a sappy love song that trades real emotion for proto-disco emotional emptiness.  Moreover, “Two Fine People” commits the cardinal sin of compilation albums; it was written just for the greatest hits album.

Putting a new song on a greatest hits record to encourage people who already own all the albums to buy it is a despicable soulless record exec practice.  It is tragically common these days, but I expect more from a hippy spirit guide like Cat Stevens.

Fortunately, apart from these two misses this album is indeed a series of hits, and inspirational ones at that.  Cat has an amazing ability to turn a phrase and deliver a wisdom that never seems preachy.  Many of the quotes from his songs have become inspirations for me on that road from youth to experience.  The best of the bunch is from “Sitting”:

“Oh life is like a maze of doors

And they all open from the side you’re on

Just keep on pushing hard boy, try as you may

You’re gonna wind up where you started from.”

Thanks for helping me find some of life’s door handles, Cat, and for continuing to stoke the fires of my hippy heart.

Best tracks:  Wild World, Can’t Keep It In, Hard Headed Woman, Peace Train, Father & Son, Sitting