Father and Son

Look at me, I am old, but I'm Happy

From my perspective, the 1970s belonged to Cat Stevens. As a musical trigger, he’s always been an artist who transports me to an entire era of my life, not necessarily just a singular story. He is likely one of the most easily distinguishable voices of my youth, a soft folksy baritone that sometimes dipped into bass. He was a songwriter who spent a lot of the first part of that decade on a personal spiritual quest in both life and his music. As a kid between the ages of 12 and 17 this fact was not as evident to me, but in hindsight and as a direct correlation to my own growth and path into adult years I am apt to tie the triggers sparked by hearing his songs to my own later journey.

In the first part of the 1970s, it could be said I was still learning who I would be in terms of musical tastes. Had I eventually grown to become a musical artist myself I would be hard-pressed to imagine what artists would have really shined as my biggest influences. My tastes were wide and varied and ranged from the rock festival origins and performances of singers like Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Yes, Rush, Steely Dan, ZZ Top, The Doobie Brothers, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, and Foghat, to Southern Rock staples such as The Eagles, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Marshall Tucker Band. The early 1970s also brought David Bowie, T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, and other glitter and glam intrigues and would eventually lead to the punk, progressive, and new wave trends that would swallow me whole later in the decade.

The truth about my musical tastes, however, has always been within my fondness for pop music and musical lyrics. I was an American Top 40 and Billboard Magazine junkie. I always loved a good list and charts became an obsession that I don’t believe I will ever shake in the course of this lifetime. These were the songs I would sing along with the most. These are the lyrics I can still sing from top to bottom without missing a beat, while at the same time forgetting what I had for lunch today. The voices that tended to attract me the most, when I want to sing along without sounding horribly ill, were the folksier ones, leaning toward the pop flavor. Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, and even Harry Chapin performed in ranges that I actually felt comfortable singing within (but there is no chance I will be doing karaoke anytime soon).

Ultimately it was Stevens who would become one of my all-time favorites in the early 1970s with his light, and beautiful tone and message. Stevens was so much a favorite that I recall naming my first cat after him when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona in 1976.

My best recollection of my introduction to Cat Stevens would be through the same way I heard almost everything the first time, American Top 40. His music was popular in the UK before it made it to the US and it wasn’t until the very first week of March in 1971 that “Wild World,” his first hit here, entered the top 40 at #35. It is almost impossible to hear “Wild World” and not find it becoming an earworm soon after. It was on my first purchased Stevens album Tea for the Tillerman, also released early in 1971, which included masterpieces like “Longer Boats,” “Where Do the Children Play,” “Sad Lisa,” and “On the Road to Find Out.” During 1971 the Cat Stevens invasion began with releases of his previous two albums from the UK, Mona Bone Jakon, and Matthew and Son. 1971 also saw two more singles released and enter the Top 40 in “Moonshadow,” and “Peace Train,” from my favorite of his albums Teaser and the Firecat.

At the end of 1971 Cat Stevens was introduced to a different audience through one of my all-time favorite films called Harold and Maude. In the dark and wickedly twisted black comedy Harold (Bud Cort) has an intrigue bordering on obsession for death that takes him to crashing funerals, where he meets a 79-year-old Maude, herself a serial crasher. Throughout the film is a soundtrack of Cat Stevens music from various sources including classics such as “Miles from Nowhere,” “Tea for the Tillerman,” “Where Do the Children Play,” and “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” I know I saw Harold and Maude several times after its release and many times more throughout the half-a-century since. There was a blend of sad, maudlin, fatalism with a touch of hope and the eclectic bordering strange love that would not likely release today without protest from one group or another about any number of its depictions.

I know I would sit on my own in my room or with a couple of friends in various states on the sober scale and listen to some of the more peaceful, loving lyrics and find my own sense of inner peace for those moments. There was something about him that could bring me back down to a lower level of anxiety about any number of things a kid with secrets becoming a teenager might experience. I will say the sessions with Cat were especially effective when stoned and in mellow, non-confrontational moods. He had that power over me, but there are certain types of artists, music styles, and lyrics that will always tame whatever beast lies within.

The lyrics of “Father and Son” depict a relationship known in some manner, shape, or form for almost all men. My history in hindsight feels so much more sympathetic than I would ever have afforded it in my younger years. But whatever the experience the blend of this beautiful baritone when singing as the father, with a higher register as the son always affected my involvement in the song and took me to a place far away from wherever the world may have been at that moment. The beauty and power of good music has, and will, always be able to do that for me.  For that reason, Cat Stevens will hold a place in the Pantheon of Musical Triggers in my life. He is a musical genius and certainly was not at all bad to look at in the 1970s either.

I was once like you are now

And I know that it’s not easy

To be calm when you’ve found

Something is going on

But take your time, think a lot

Think of everything you’ve got

For you will still be here tomorrow

But your dreams may not.