Speaker 1: Pushkin. Since debuting in the late sixties, use of Kat
Speaker 1: Stevens has made a sizeable contribution to the folk cannon
Speaker 1: with tender, contemplative songs like wild World, Moonshadow, and the Wind.
Speaker 1: I listen to the Wind, to the wind of my soul,
Speaker 1: where I'll lend up well? I think only God really knows.
Speaker 1: Use of Kat stevens journey as a seeker and a
Speaker 1: musician is closely tied to his near death experience fighting
Speaker 1: to berculosis as a young man in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: After spending a year recovering, Stevens began to write songs
Speaker 1: at a staggering rate. By the mid seventies, he had
Speaker 1: released eight studio albums and become one of the defining
Speaker 1: singer songwriters of the decade. Teaser in the Firect, one
Speaker 1: of those classic seventies albums, was recently reissued to celebrate
Speaker 1: its fiftieth anniversary. The new edition features remastered versions of
Speaker 1: the original album, along with forty one previously unreleased demos
Speaker 1: and alternate mixes. On today's episode, Bruce Heedlam talks to
Speaker 1: Yusef about what it was like to perform his old
Speaker 1: songs after he converted to Islam in the late seventies.
Speaker 1: They also talk in detail about how Stevens wrote and
Speaker 1: recorded Teaser in the Fire Cat, and they talk about
Speaker 1: how he came to love some of the rough versions
Speaker 1: of his songs that appeared on the soundtrack for the
Speaker 1: movie Harold and mod which was also just recently re
Speaker 1: released for its own fiftieth anniversary. This is broken record
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmondson. Here's
Speaker 1: Bruce Edlam with Yusef Kat Stevens. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about everything in this whole new package for Teaser in
Speaker 1: the Fire Cat. It's got demos and nice little remembrances
Speaker 1: from Rick Wakeman and Carly Simon. But before that, I
Speaker 1: just would like to know what was your life like.
Speaker 1: You'd had a couple albums, but then you had your
Speaker 1: big album T for the Tillerman and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Harold and Maud was out yet by the time
Speaker 1: you were writing this album, But what was the sort
Speaker 1: of the state of your life before going in to
Speaker 1: do Teaser in the Firect. First of all, I was
Speaker 1: re emerging, if you like, finding my new identity, because
Speaker 1: I'd gone through a very initial spell of pop stardom,
Speaker 1: you may say, and I was writing very different kind
Speaker 1: of songs really. I mean, those those early songs which
Speaker 1: were released on Decca were very poppy, and they always
Speaker 1: had an arrangement, you know, so it wasn't me playing
Speaker 1: the guitar. It was always session man, you know, being
Speaker 1: paid to do this. And I had a producer who
Speaker 1: was just infatuated with pat sounds, but he could never
Speaker 1: create pet sounds with my music. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit. I was feeling a little bit odd,
Speaker 1: not really being myself, not able to be myself. So
Speaker 1: now time progresses and really I find myself after after
Speaker 1: having contracted tuberculosis and going into hospital, and suddenly, you know,
Speaker 1: I looked at life completely differently. I said, this time,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to try and take charge at
Speaker 1: least of my music. And so then I started writing,
Speaker 1: and that's where plethora of songs just k flooded out
Speaker 1: of me. They more or less formed the basic song
Speaker 1: list of my next three albums, you know, which included
Speaker 1: Mona Bone, Jakan, and Teeth for the Tillerman and of
Speaker 1: course Teasing the Firecat. Although yeah, there were other songs
Speaker 1: which I had yet to be write, you know, and
Speaker 1: yet to find like Morning is Broken for instance. You
Speaker 1: know that wasn't mine. Yes, So I was in this
Speaker 1: state where i'd come back and I was really really
Speaker 1: happy that I found a label, which is Island Records,
Speaker 1: that allowed me to just be myself and producer and
Speaker 1: a bunch of musicians that really just supported me and
Speaker 1: let me just be myself. And that was great. It
Speaker 1: was a miracle, you know, compared to what I sounded
Speaker 1: like before that, this was totally different. And so some people,
Speaker 1: I suppose in UK because that's why I said my
Speaker 1: first career really began and Europe, who you know, is
Speaker 1: this true? You know, is it really the same guy?
Speaker 1: So I'd made quite change in my life, and then
Speaker 1: that became my modus up or endi. You know, I
Speaker 1: was continuously walking through thresholds and trying to reach a
Speaker 1: new height, you know, somewhere better than where I was.
Speaker 1: So Teaser came off the back of if you like
Speaker 1: Teefa Tilamu. Now that was kind of pretty much a
Speaker 1: milestone record, although I didn't really realize it at the time,
Speaker 1: but in retrospect you can see it now. But you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people were saying, well, is he
Speaker 1: going to be able to do something as good? You know?
Speaker 1: And so this was me sort of riding a wave
Speaker 1: and inspired and I think forfeiting taking all the boxes
Speaker 1: to anybody, you know. But in front of me, were
Speaker 1: you feeling pressure after tea for the tellerman to come
Speaker 1: up with something as successful? No, I was. It was
Speaker 1: kind of easy. Was something I was doing anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: So I don't think I had to try. It was
Speaker 1: people were absorbing my music as fast as I could
Speaker 1: make it, you know. I was having a great reception
Speaker 1: with my music. You mentioned in the introduction to the
Speaker 1: booklet that's included with this new edition that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people around James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Elton John.
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned Carol King and you said there
Speaker 1: was a competition at least sort of listening through the
Speaker 1: walls at the recording studio. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: meant that literally or figuratively. Were you listening to those
Speaker 1: people and thinking, huh, I've got to pick it up,
Speaker 1: I've got to do something different. No, no, no. When
Speaker 1: we talk about competition, it was like only after you
Speaker 1: when you've made the record, you know. So you're seeing
Speaker 1: how well your record company to do with your music.
Speaker 1: It wasn't really that I've got to write a better
Speaker 1: song than Elton John. It wasn't anything like that. It
Speaker 1: was just seeing whether or not people were hearing you.
Speaker 1: And that was the competition, you know. So yeah, the charts,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a track race. You know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to get to the top. But it's it's not
Speaker 1: that you want to necessarily downbeat the person in front
Speaker 1: of you. You know, you just want your record companies
Speaker 1: to make sure that everybody gets gets to see you win.
Speaker 1: That's all. What did Ireland Records see that Decca didn't
Speaker 1: see when you started with Island Records, Well, it was
Speaker 1: really a very introspective new approach to lyric writing. I
Speaker 1: was writing my autobiography, if you like, through my music
Speaker 1: and you know, my lyrics. It was whatever I was learning,
Speaker 1: whatever I was reading. You know, I was into metaphysical
Speaker 1: books and trying to find out, you know, the eye
Speaker 1: behind me or with in me. Buddhist books. You know,
Speaker 1: I was reaching out then and so therefore anything that
Speaker 1: I was discovering I kind of like wrote about it
Speaker 1: very quickly. So if you listen to the wind. You know,
Speaker 1: there you have a perfect example of my state of mind,
Speaker 1: you know, waiting for the inspiration, which is the wind.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a symbol of the wind. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that that word is very close to the wind.
Speaker 1: Inspiration is like a wind. Did you know that's what
Speaker 1: you were feeling at the time or did it just
Speaker 1: sort of come out of you and then once you
Speaker 1: wrote the song, you said, oh, this, this must be
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling, This must be what I'm thinking. Well,
Speaker 1: you know I was thinking. I was I was trying
Speaker 1: to lay it down that was that was what I
Speaker 1: was doing, and I think I did pretty well. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people really connected. I mean I wrote
Speaker 1: most of these songs in a little bedsit you know
Speaker 1: where my father gave me this little flat above the cafe,
Speaker 1: my Dad's cafe in London, and it was just one
Speaker 1: little beds and that was really the epitome of the
Speaker 1: kind of the audience that I had because they were
Speaker 1: all inspectives listening to me too, and there was a
Speaker 1: kind of this community of introspective people looking at the
Speaker 1: world and looking at what the challenges are out there,
Speaker 1: and there's a whole lot of competition going on. But actually,
Speaker 1: when I talked about competition, I didn't mean that that's
Speaker 1: why I wrote songs. I mean, god, no, it was
Speaker 1: just that that was just the business side. As I said,
Speaker 1: it was really my internal journey that I was really
Speaker 1: concentrating on, and that connected very very deeply. Was the
Speaker 1: Win the first song you wrote for this album. I
Speaker 1: note you wrote a lot of songs when you were recovering,
Speaker 1: but because it's it's such an interesting song to begin
Speaker 1: an album with. Teaser is a much rockier, harder edged
Speaker 1: album than TFA the Tellerman, at least I think some
Speaker 1: of the songs and you start on a very kind
Speaker 1: of pensive note. Did that song come to you first
Speaker 1: or did you just feel it introduced the album best.
Speaker 1: I think it represented who I was better than any
Speaker 1: other because the other songs were a little bit more arranged,
Speaker 1: you know, there was more sounds, more drums, more everything.
Speaker 1: This was really scaled down me, you know, peeled down
Speaker 1: to the call. And that's why we loved it. And
Speaker 1: that's and that's why I think people also appreciate when
Speaker 1: they listen to the album, this is the beginning. This
Speaker 1: is the beginning. Of this journey. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: it's not even me playing guitar at the beginning. That's
Speaker 1: actually Alan. He plays this lovely little arpeggio thing and
Speaker 1: then I come in. But the words of that song
Speaker 1: are so so profound, you know, I think just keep
Speaker 1: reflecting on them, and they mean so much. When I
Speaker 1: talk about I'll never make the same mistake, Well, that's
Speaker 1: our problem, you know, as human beings were always making mistakes,
Speaker 1: and but that's the other characteristic of human beings is
Speaker 1: that we try to develop and get over them and
Speaker 1: do something better. And you know, so that's it's great.
Speaker 1: It's got so many aspects to that song. It also
Speaker 1: introduces this the to the record, which is in some
Speaker 1: of the sort of rockier songs as well of putting
Speaker 1: the past behind Changes four, particularly Tuesday's Dead. It runs
Speaker 1: throughout this album, this feeling that you've got to put
Speaker 1: the past behind you. Is that something you felt strongly
Speaker 1: at the time about your career or your life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was looking back at Decca, you know,
Speaker 1: the old Decca days, and that was more like looking
Speaker 1: looking back at Dickens, you know, the times of Dickens.
Speaker 1: That's what it felt like to me, but the past.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you look at a song like Changes,
Speaker 1: I knew there were a few other songs called Changes,
Speaker 1: So that's that's why I called it Changes four. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if there were three before that where there
Speaker 1: were twenty, I don't know, but I call it Changes
Speaker 1: four just to distinguish this's this one from what David
Speaker 1: Bowie had one too. So therefore Changes. You know, we
Speaker 1: were really we had high expectations and we were definitely
Speaker 1: in the political mood. The generation, our generation was trying
Speaker 1: to really change things around everything, to leave the past
Speaker 1: and go forward. But you know, political barricades were not
Speaker 1: easy to overcome. This album also has a strong gospel feel.
Speaker 1: It is Morning is Broken, which is a hymn, not gospel.
Speaker 1: Particularly growing up was what were your influences when you
Speaker 1: were first starting to play the piano and the guitar.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I had all kinds of influences because I
Speaker 1: lived in the center of London and so you can imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a theater across the road on
Speaker 1: my doorstep. I went to school in Drury Lane, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean there were all the cinemas, all the clubs,
Speaker 1: tin pan Alli my best friend. Actually his father had
Speaker 1: a restaurant too, and he was just on Tin Pallet
Speaker 1: that was about four hundred yards away, you know, so
Speaker 1: it was all where I lived, soho it was just
Speaker 1: a little bit further. Piccadilly was the other end of
Speaker 1: my road. So because of that, I picked up all
Speaker 1: the genres there were, you know, buzzing around. But Westside
Speaker 1: story was it? You know that that really broke or
Speaker 1: all the barriers for me as far as as I
Speaker 1: could see as in music, it had everything. And then
Speaker 1: came the Beatles, you know, and wow, and they were
Speaker 1: getting sourced or their inspiration was also coming from this,
Speaker 1: you know, from the state side. Black artists, you know,
Speaker 1: a little little singles were coming across the water and
Speaker 1: they were listening to them, and you were getting you know,
Speaker 1: Muddy Waters and John Lee Hook and all these people,
Speaker 1: so all that stuff. I was soaking it all up.
Speaker 1: When you were writing these songs, How did there come?
Speaker 1: Was it you and a guitar just finding a key?
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was mostly like that. I mean I
Speaker 1: had a new guitar. I mean, every new guitar has
Speaker 1: its own you know, song within it. And that's another thing.
Speaker 1: But that was a favorite guitar of mine, which was
Speaker 1: black Everly Brothers, you know, Gibson, and I wrote most
Speaker 1: of my songs on there. But then of course I
Speaker 1: had a little Italian organ which sounded really crappy, you know,
Speaker 1: but it gave me so many ideas. I just pressed
Speaker 1: a button. It was another one. And of course when
Speaker 1: the arp synthesizer came out, wow, that was another whole,
Speaker 1: you know, kaleidoscope sound for me to play with. But
Speaker 1: really I kind of jumped from guitar sometimes the piano
Speaker 1: at a piano upstairs in the house, and you know,
Speaker 1: my little organ, and that was it in my little
Speaker 1: tape recording and I was off. You know, no obstacle
Speaker 1: to me writing at all. You're a very muscular guitar
Speaker 1: player and very rhythmic. Unlike a lot of folk music
Speaker 1: of the day. You've got a really strong beat in
Speaker 1: what you do, and the same thing on piano. Like
Speaker 1: when I think of Miles from Nowhere, I hadn't realized
Speaker 1: you'd played that piano part. It's a really great bluesy part.
Speaker 1: Who were the players that influenced you? Because you've got
Speaker 1: such an aggressive rhythmic sound on both instruments. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. I mean that was you know, I suppose
Speaker 1: Ray Charles, you know, if you listen his voice, I mean,
Speaker 1: to be honest, that's that's the voice for the blues,
Speaker 1: I mean, incredible. So and so I was influenced by him.
Speaker 1: I was also influenced by Nina Simon, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: play piano like her, you know, but she did play
Speaker 1: wild piano though. Sometimes you listen to you know, Mississippi
Speaker 1: Goddamn you know bang you know, she does it as well.
Speaker 1: So in those kinds of songs. And then of course
Speaker 1: you've got sad Lisa. You can you can go to
Speaker 1: my classical side and you can see I'm sort of
Speaker 1: very soft, very gentle, you know, on the piano as well.
Speaker 1: So I took on different moods. But I with a
Speaker 1: rock song, of course, you've got to bang it out.
Speaker 1: That's that's why I feel. And were there any guitarists
Speaker 1: that influenced you, particularly guitarists are I suppose, looking back
Speaker 1: at the time, Peter Green, you know, oh well, I
Speaker 1: mean that song, I think you can hear a little
Speaker 1: bit of Lady Darbon feeling the way that I play
Speaker 1: that you know that little on the guitar. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure it was influenced by Peter Green when it came
Speaker 1: to the groups. I mean, I thought Keith Richards was
Speaker 1: a terrific guitar player. His riffs and he loved a riff.
Speaker 1: You know. You go back to kind of Harley and
Speaker 1: Wall for that kind of thing. Down down, down, dud down.
Speaker 1: Were you the kind of kid who sat there with
Speaker 1: the radio and figured out riffs as you heard them? No,
Speaker 1: in fact, that was one of the real I would
Speaker 1: say motivations for me to write songs that I could
Speaker 1: not work out the chords and it was just too
Speaker 1: tedious to even bother to you know, Oh no, he's changing,
Speaker 1: Oh too quick? Oh that what's that word? Oh no,
Speaker 1: I can't even hear it, you know. So I'd write
Speaker 1: my own songs forget about learning anybody else's. We're taking
Speaker 1: a quick break here, but we'll be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Bruce Helen's conversation with yusef Kat Stephens. We're
Speaker 1: back with more from the use of Kat Stephens. So
Speaker 1: you set down to record this album, and I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about two people who you'd worked with before.
Speaker 1: Paul Samuel Smith. First of all, can you just talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about his influence on you, well, Paul.
Speaker 1: You know, i'd actually seen him in the clubs, you know,
Speaker 1: because when when I was, you know, getting into music,
Speaker 1: I was going to the clubs and he was in
Speaker 1: the Yardbirds. So I saw him at the Hundred Club,
Speaker 1: which was just down the road from where I lived,
Speaker 1: and I used to dance his music, you know, and
Speaker 1: there was other groups there. The Animals used to come down.
Speaker 1: Manfred Mann an awful lot, the who dropped into the market.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all that going on, but he was
Speaker 1: the baseball. I didn't really notice him, to be honest,
Speaker 1: at that time. It just, you know, you felt it.
Speaker 1: You felt the base didn't really know what he was doing.
Speaker 1: But then, of course, when Chris Blackwell of Ireland Records
Speaker 1: sort of discovered me, he kind of brought Paul on
Speaker 1: board and I listened to an album he had made
Speaker 1: with Renaissance as the kind of British sort of progressive
Speaker 1: folk group, and wow, I loved it. It was so
Speaker 1: clean and English, you know. I loved the ambience which
Speaker 1: he created with that. It's like, you know, sometimes if
Speaker 1: you hear the timbre of a guitar. It's would and
Speaker 1: that's what he tried to capture. He tried to capture
Speaker 1: the nature of the wood of the guitar that I
Speaker 1: was playing, and that was extraordinary. And the other person
Speaker 1: you started working with was Alan Davies. Yeah, so Alan,
Speaker 1: I mean Alan was brought on board kind of like
Speaker 1: as a replacement for someone who Paul actually wanted. It
Speaker 1: was John Mark, but he was busy, so then he's
Speaker 1: that he recommended Alan come along. Alan was kind of thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, this is like cut steam as he was
Speaker 1: sort of this black velvet suit guy, and what's it
Speaker 1: going to be? And then of course he listened to
Speaker 1: the new songs and wow, is blown away and then
Speaker 1: he became my perfect companion. All those little intricate gaps
Speaker 1: that he used to fill and you know, and enhancement.
Speaker 1: It was just incredible how it worked. And so we
Speaker 1: we've been together ever since, ever since those early days
Speaker 1: in Olympic where we first started recording Monamo and Jackin
Speaker 1: was it that made you go so compatible? Well, he
Speaker 1: was blond and I was dark. Here, I mean that's
Speaker 1: basically you know, we just went together. It was a
Speaker 1: great combination. Yin and Yang Sun and Moon. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you would do all the chords and the strumming, and
Speaker 1: he would do the patterns. Yes, and what it came
Speaker 1: to something like Wild World and you know, you've got
Speaker 1: a few licks which I'm doing, which which he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He was doing more strumming actually on Wild World. So
Speaker 1: we kind of changed around here and there. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you listen to Father and Son, you can hear
Speaker 1: that beautiful response to my first guitar chords. You know,
Speaker 1: down da da da and he goes da da da beautiful.
Speaker 1: Would you just sit and play together to work out
Speaker 1: those things? Is that something you did in studio or
Speaker 1: while you were writing? Oh? No, that was always done
Speaker 1: in the studio. I'd come kind of with a ready
Speaker 1: made well not all the time, they weren't all finished. Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, the first recording of Wild World, I kind
Speaker 1: of had oh, Darling, Darling, it's the world World. No,
Speaker 1: that didn't work. Next day I changed it to oh
Speaker 1: Baby Baby. But usually the songs were formed. You know,
Speaker 1: they've got their character, and I was trying to teach
Speaker 1: them some of these. Occasionally I'll do something on the
Speaker 1: timing that would be slightly different, and that that was
Speaker 1: the thing which stumped them, and so we'd have to
Speaker 1: stop and start again until we got that right. But
Speaker 1: usually it would be in the studio that we worked
Speaker 1: this out. Yeah, one of the songs on the album
Speaker 1: is is in seven eight I think you have un
Speaker 1: usual time signature sometimes. Yeah, that was the Greek in me,
Speaker 1: you know, so my father was from Cyprus, so they
Speaker 1: often do this. They do an eleven one too, you know,
Speaker 1: eleven eight time signature too, and sometimes they swap it around. Well,
Speaker 1: actually Allen didn't play on that one, to be honest,
Speaker 1: it was you know, Andreas Tumazi, you know, a friend
Speaker 1: I met, a buzuki player who, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: did that so naturally, you know, like in his sleep.
Speaker 1: Did you listen to Greek music growing up, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we went to weddings and that's the new music
Speaker 1: they had, you know, for sure. My brother also my
Speaker 1: half brother my father's first marriage. His name was George
Speaker 1: and he was a bazooki player and he actually played violin.
Speaker 1: So I used to go and see him play at
Speaker 1: the weddings. But you never played yourself the bazooki. No,
Speaker 1: it was very difficult to hold because it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a bowl um and you know it's balancing that
Speaker 1: thing is not easy. So guitar is much better, much easier.
Speaker 1: When I was talking about your guitar playing and you
Speaker 1: mentioned you had the Everly Brothers Gibson, it makes me
Speaker 1: think your guitar playing is a little like the Everly Brothers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could say that. I mean also, yeah, you Eddie Cochran,
Speaker 1: you know, if you know d you know, I love
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, the riffs. M we're using full chords,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like he listened to UM,
Speaker 1: I wasn't electric, but you know it's the same kind
Speaker 1: of thing that Kinks did. I love all that, all
Speaker 1: those kind of h cordy riffs. Did you see the
Speaker 1: Kinks as well live? You saw so many great bands live, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Kinks as well. Yeah, for sure they were. They were
Speaker 1: doing the circuits as well. I have to ask you
Speaker 1: what it was like to see the Kinks back then. Well,
Speaker 1: they were very odd, you know, and but they were
Speaker 1: more kind of R and B in the beginning. You
Speaker 1: could hear that for sure. You know, they were listening
Speaker 1: to all the songs that were coming over, you know,
Speaker 1: from Stateside and the sort of Martown influence as well.
Speaker 1: You could hear that Fortune Teller I Reckon was an
Speaker 1: inspiration for You Really Got Me Too? You know so well,
Speaker 1: all those kind of songs influenced them and they interpreted
Speaker 1: it their way, sort of their British way, in a
Speaker 1: British sound. I want to talk to you about a
Speaker 1: couple of specific songs on the album. It's one of
Speaker 1: these albums I grew up with, so I know it
Speaker 1: so well. There's much more than for the Tellerman. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of very direct love songs. If I laugh,
Speaker 1: how can I tell you? They were much more kind
Speaker 1: of sort of yearning and much more direct than other
Speaker 1: stuff you've done. Tell me about those songs. Well, you've
Speaker 1: got to find someone you know you can you can love.
Speaker 1: That's that's the whole that's the whole joy of you know,
Speaker 1: and the search is the thing. You know, when you
Speaker 1: find someone, they'd never usually turn out exactly the way
Speaker 1: you expected. So there's always that kind of disappointment because
Speaker 1: the perfect person isn't there, you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: what we project from what we expect from others. And
Speaker 1: so how can I tell you? Was really a song
Speaker 1: about an invisible girl, you know someone who well, no,
Speaker 1: I was going out with someone at the time, but
Speaker 1: I use that as a kind of a sort of
Speaker 1: jumping board if you like to to then write this
Speaker 1: song about another girl which wasn't her. I suppose was
Speaker 1: the other girl a real girl or just an imaginary girl?
Speaker 1: That would always be imaginery, always imaginer. Yeah, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: no limits to my imagination. Tell me the story about
Speaker 1: the song moon Shadow, Well, Moonshadow is of course very
Speaker 1: special to me because while I was the city lad,
Speaker 1: and therefore I was used to looking at the moon
Speaker 1: from the street with lab lights, you know, with street lights,
Speaker 1: and so therefore I never ever saw my shadow until
Speaker 1: I took a holiday in Spain. This was just before
Speaker 1: I was making the record, and lo and behold, I
Speaker 1: looked down there, I am you know, it's me. It's
Speaker 1: my shadow. I couldn't believe it, and I had a
Speaker 1: few melodis, you may say, and I developed this one
Speaker 1: particular song to suit the moment, and it was perfect.
Speaker 1: It was just it was all in d and therefore
Speaker 1: the moon Shadow was born. I think that's a funny
Speaker 1: story because for me, Tifa the Tillerman is such a
Speaker 1: pastoral album. It seems like an album of someone who
Speaker 1: lives in the country, seems very about nature and boats.
Speaker 1: And then when you said, well you were a city kid,
Speaker 1: I mean I think most people would think you were
Speaker 1: some kid from the country because because of that pastoral
Speaker 1: feel as some of your music. Yeah, well that was
Speaker 1: the imagination at work, you know. So so yeah, we
Speaker 1: had patches of green, you know, which we would go to.
Speaker 1: They're called parks in London and you take a bus
Speaker 1: and you know, you have to go quite a way
Speaker 1: to get there, get off and you're in the park.
Speaker 1: But there was always this you know, dream of the
Speaker 1: land of green. And so therefore I wrote where do
Speaker 1: the Children Play? For instance, based on the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, where I lived was all Cement and that
Speaker 1: impacted me. Yeah, so it was it was more like
Speaker 1: the ideal within my mind, within my sort of creative
Speaker 1: songwriting mind, that that helped me see all these things
Speaker 1: and paint them with my music, with my words. It's
Speaker 1: like England, this green and pleasant land. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I know you went to Catholic school, you may
Speaker 1: not have listened to Jerusalem when you that him when
Speaker 1: you're at school I'm not sure if it's a Catholic
Speaker 1: or a Protestant song. Now and now you're confusing me.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where that lies. But yes, you're right
Speaker 1: by the way. William Blake he was born in Soho,
Speaker 1: if you know, around the corner from the clubs where
Speaker 1: I used to go no zab Rain. Yeah, William he
Speaker 1: wrote the words, of course of that song. So he's
Speaker 1: another city boy who just wrote about the country. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well look at what he wrote too, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about the Satanic mills. He was talking about the New
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, which was on the doorstep and which I
Speaker 1: wrote about later when I wrote Matthew and Son, for instance,
Speaker 1: Were you influenced by Blake when you were young as well?
Speaker 1: I like Blake, but I think I was more influenced
Speaker 1: by well. I loved, let's say, Van Gogh. He was
Speaker 1: my favorite artist apart from the cartoons, because I did
Speaker 1: actually spend more time looking at cartoons than I did
Speaker 1: in the National Gallery or anything. But yeah, cartoons was
Speaker 1: a much quicker way of expressing yourself and you know,
Speaker 1: having a few laughs as well, because I used to
Speaker 1: like cartoons. Did you start drawing around the same time
Speaker 1: you started playing music, No, no, no. I began with
Speaker 1: the pen and that was actually going to be my few.
Speaker 1: I really felt I was going to be an artist
Speaker 1: or a cartoonist or whatever, you know. That was my ambition.
Speaker 1: And then along came all this music, you know, the
Speaker 1: Beatles changed everything. And then I realized a lot of
Speaker 1: artists actually didn't die very rich. And the only you know,
Speaker 1: the painting started selling for millions or whatever it was
Speaker 1: when they died. I thought, well, that's no good, because
Speaker 1: here's the Beatles earning money right now, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's a clear road to where I wanted to
Speaker 1: go at that time. And tell me about the song
Speaker 1: Morning has Broken, Morning is Broken is a beautiful him,
Speaker 1: which I just happened to fall upon. I was looking
Speaker 1: for inspiration, and I was in a bookshop and I
Speaker 1: aided up in the religious department, and I fiddled around
Speaker 1: there and I found this hymn book, you know, and
Speaker 1: I m there, I go, I got some nice interesting words,
Speaker 1: took it back and I couldn't really read music, but
Speaker 1: I slowly I deciphered you know, doo doo doom doom doom. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is great, you know, And then I put my
Speaker 1: own cause to it because they didn't have the cords
Speaker 1: and there was just a top line and then and
Speaker 1: that that that became you know, part of My My Cannon,
Speaker 1: which people think, well I wrote it. Of course I didn't.
Speaker 1: I just arranged it. And I've called a Rick Wakeman
Speaker 1: happened to be in Morgan Studios where we were recording Teaser,
Speaker 1: and he dropped in and we asked him to just
Speaker 1: you know, instead of it being just only acoustic, I
Speaker 1: wanted something really flowery and magnificent, you know, and he
Speaker 1: did it. He did it so beautifully. We couldn't put
Speaker 1: his name on the album because it was like it
Speaker 1: was taboo in those days to do that. Oh, because
Speaker 1: he was on another label. He was on Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: The Enemy, the Enemy. You say, you're not competitive, but boy,
Speaker 1: he didn't like Warner Brothers. They didn't offer me enough money,
Speaker 1: to be honest, Well, shame on them. Did you work
Speaker 1: out the arrangement with him? Because it's got a beautiful
Speaker 1: little and I don't know if it's in the original,
Speaker 1: but it's got a beautiful little modulation that song. It
Speaker 1: starts in D and you go through the introduction and
Speaker 1: then you end up in ce you go back to
Speaker 1: D for I think one of the verses or maybe
Speaker 1: a chorus, but it's quite sophisticated, the way it moves
Speaker 1: back and forth between the keys. Was that something you
Speaker 1: worked out yourself? Did you work that out with him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I kind of told him I want to change key here,
Speaker 1: and because I didn't want it to go like monotonously
Speaker 1: through four kind of verses or four choruses or whatever
Speaker 1: to the end. I wanted something to change so that
Speaker 1: therefore the third one kind of moved up, and he
Speaker 1: was able to do that. On my guitar. I had
Speaker 1: more difficult time to do things a little bit higher,
Speaker 1: so he managed it. Of course he was a wizard
Speaker 1: on that. It's become a sort of modern hymn. Were
Speaker 1: you trying to get that kind of him feeling for it?
Speaker 1: And think I didn't even think of it as a hymn.
Speaker 1: I just thought of it as a great song. And
Speaker 1: the words were so universal, they were not tied to
Speaker 1: any dogma or in particular denomination, and so therefore it
Speaker 1: was free. It was just beautiful, and I loved it.
Speaker 1: But it was spiritual, and that's what I wanted. I
Speaker 1: wanted that spiritual side. I actually pronounced the words wrong
Speaker 1: in there, because I didn't know that it should have
Speaker 1: been God's recreation of the New Day. Instead I sang
Speaker 1: God's recreation and complaints some as old grannies. You know
Speaker 1: here God say that it's anyway my fault. No, you're
Speaker 1: you're okay, because everybody just says the English they say everything,
Speaker 1: you're okay. I'm just wondering because it came in seventy one,
Speaker 1: which is just after Let it Be the song Bridge
Speaker 1: over Troubled Water. Suddenly there was a lot of gospel feel,
Speaker 1: a lot of hymns in the top forty mm. I
Speaker 1: never thought what about that until now when you've said it,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you're right, it's sort of fitted into a
Speaker 1: kind of inspirational moment of spirituality, I suppose at that point, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the state of your own spiritual journey? At
Speaker 1: this point? It was very jagged and nothing really quite
Speaker 1: I mean, if I liked something, it wouldn't quite go
Speaker 1: to the end, because there'd be something I'd find, a
Speaker 1: problem which I couldn't rationalize or I couldn't absorb, and
Speaker 1: so therefore I went to the next thing I was
Speaker 1: looking for. You know, you make your own. At that point,
Speaker 1: I made my own religion up and it was basically music,
Speaker 1: you know. It was just me writing best songs, trying
Speaker 1: to not to hurt anybody. And I suppose inspired by
Speaker 1: Christ as well, because I mean I had seven years
Speaker 1: at Catholic school. I mean that really has to imprint,
Speaker 1: you know, something on you. But then the church was
Speaker 1: something completely different I imagine Christ to be. So I
Speaker 1: was wandering, you know, through the woods of religiosity or spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and not finding yet my home. Were a good Catholic
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic student, No, absolutely, In fact, I wasn't even Catholic.
Speaker 1: They stuck me in that school because it was the
Speaker 1: best school around. But I was Greek Orthodox, so I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even do things, you know. I was always wondering,
Speaker 1: what's that little white thing that they brought on their tongue.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to taste one of those things, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't because I was Greek Orthodox. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after a quick break with more from Yusef Kat Stephens.
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of Bruce Helen's conversation with
Speaker 1: Yusef Kat Stephens. I mean lots of songs on this
Speaker 1: album have lasted, but peace Train, you're very well known for.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the writing of peace Train. Well, peace
Speaker 1: Train was a ref It was kind of It's got
Speaker 1: a bit of a Greek feel to it. If you
Speaker 1: listen to it, you get strains of this Greek influence
Speaker 1: in my music. If you listen to Road to find Out,
Speaker 1: you'll actually hear it in the voices a bit there
Speaker 1: that I do. And peace Train was the same thing.
Speaker 1: It was like this toothing. It was like a first
Speaker 1: and a third, you know, And you can hear the
Speaker 1: on Lady Dub on Wheel two, I'm doing kind of
Speaker 1: like the same thing. And I really do remember being
Speaker 1: on a train going out north to Manchester or wherever
Speaker 1: on a tour, you know, when I was just launching
Speaker 1: monomone Jack and and I'm pretty sure that that's where
Speaker 1: I got the kind of the field for this. I
Speaker 1: probably pulled my guitar out and did it there and
Speaker 1: then and then went, oh this is good, and then
Speaker 1: I never forgot it, you know, then I just finished it.
Speaker 1: But however, it was one of the hardest songs to
Speaker 1: chase in the studio, and so therefore I'd already written
Speaker 1: it by the time I recorded T for the Tillerman,
Speaker 1: and we recorded Peace Train for TIF for the Tillerman,
Speaker 1: but it just never made it because I was not
Speaker 1: satisfied with the energy because I was singing it live
Speaker 1: and it was making the audio it's just explode. But
Speaker 1: I never achieved that in the studio. So therefore we
Speaker 1: had to add drums and the right bass fit, and
Speaker 1: I never got it until finally when Teaser came around,
Speaker 1: we did it and we finally got that bass part
Speaker 1: in Ireland Records in Paula Bell Road, that's where we
Speaker 1: did it. And it was the bass that made that song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bass riff is really really crucial. It was a pick,
Speaker 1: you know. And the drums as well. Now I've got
Speaker 1: to say that the drums were so tasteful because they
Speaker 1: weren't there all the time, and they just highlighted the
Speaker 1: rhythm of the guitars. And so I think that that's
Speaker 1: what made it. After you converted to Islam, which was
Speaker 1: I think seventy seven, you stopped playing some of your
Speaker 1: old songs for a time. Do you remember what was
Speaker 1: it like to come back and start playing these songs
Speaker 1: from from Teaser? In the fire cat again. It's like
Speaker 1: it's yours and you can make it, you can update
Speaker 1: it and the way you want, you can sing it
Speaker 1: the way you feel. But actually it was still stood
Speaker 1: the test of time. I mean, most of those words
Speaker 1: are still so relative to our times and circumstances today. Change,
Speaker 1: you know, come on, we do need change every time
Speaker 1: a political you know, election comes along. We are dying
Speaker 1: to see this change. And then it falls back into
Speaker 1: the same or kind of groove. But anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: So then talk about the other songs. That peace Train
Speaker 1: still hasn't arrived. Maybe it hasn't even left the station.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But in fact, I call one of
Speaker 1: my tours when I first came back again, I called
Speaker 1: it peace Train late again, you know, and I had
Speaker 1: a little station you know where the train of course
Speaker 1: never arrived. It's such a personal album though about you
Speaker 1: questioning things. What was it like to come back to that.
Speaker 1: Do you put yourself in the mindset that you were
Speaker 1: back then or do the years allow you to sing
Speaker 1: it in a different way or think about them in
Speaker 1: a different way. Well, because they're poetic, Oh they don't really,
Speaker 1: they're not grounded, you know. You can't say it's exactly
Speaker 1: it means exactly this political point in time. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's generic but profound, and so therefore it lasts, and
Speaker 1: you can interpret it in so many different ways that
Speaker 1: you know, the way that you want to. Things like
Speaker 1: Tuesday's Dead still a bit of a puzzle. I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: why did I say Tuesday is dead? You know? I
Speaker 1: don't know, because Monday's a bore. I don't know. So
Speaker 1: there are still puzzles within those songs to work out.
Speaker 1: Are there some songs from this album that you just
Speaker 1: sing in a different way, in a different spirit. Now,
Speaker 1: if you listen to the new Box that you'll hear
Speaker 1: me doing Bitter Blue in a totally different tone. I've
Speaker 1: got very excited about singing that song again, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it with the same gusto you know that
Speaker 1: I did before and this so it's much darker. Why
Speaker 1: is that? Because the first version is a pretty it's
Speaker 1: a very kind of rocking song, but it's a slightly
Speaker 1: desperate song. How did you rethink it? Well? I was
Speaker 1: a little bit inspired when I heard Green Day, and
Speaker 1: I heard Green Day sing a song called Know the Enemy,
Speaker 1: and I thought, hang on that sounds an awful lot
Speaker 1: like a bit of blue and I thought, hmmm, I
Speaker 1: can do the same, And I thought I started developing
Speaker 1: a new approach to the song, and it was a
Speaker 1: bit darker, slower. Of course I wasn't Green Day, but
Speaker 1: but you know, I thought, well, this is great. It's flexible.
Speaker 1: It's flexible, and that that's the thing about my songs,
Speaker 1: actually a lot of them. If you if you try
Speaker 1: them in various ways, they work. They still work. So
Speaker 1: when you heard the Green Day song, you either picked
Speaker 1: up a guitar or picked up a phone and called
Speaker 1: your lawyer to see if no. I thought, let them
Speaker 1: let them off this one, let them off this one.
Speaker 1: You didn't let off Coldplay? I know, but let them off? Yeah,
Speaker 1: cold Play? Well, now hang on Coldplay. I let off
Speaker 1: as well. There was too many people claiming that they
Speaker 1: wrote that that song, so, but I was definitely there first.
Speaker 1: I would say, I think so with foreign a suite.
Speaker 1: But anyway, certain people I nab. I can't remember who
Speaker 1: they were. Oh, I think it was Flaming Lips, that
Speaker 1: was it, one of them. Well good for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they recorded a you know, a song called fight Test
Speaker 1: and it really sounded like father and son. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: couldn't let it go. Are you still rating? Yeah? Well
Speaker 1: I wrote a song maybe about two weeks ago, you know,
Speaker 1: and I recorded it in my studio. I'm the only
Speaker 1: one who's basically well, my family have heard it, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still writing, yeah for sure. Is it still the
Speaker 1: same way the inspiration hits you or is it just
Speaker 1: you niddling with a guitar and something emerges? M well,
Speaker 1: this one is piano actually, So whenever I pick up
Speaker 1: a guitar, I always develops into some kind of new
Speaker 1: riff or new song or new chords. I can't just
Speaker 1: play old stuff. Although when I go touring, of course
Speaker 1: I know that people want to hear that song, so
Speaker 1: I do that. But when it comes to writing, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a whole album of songs now ready to
Speaker 1: be released, but because of the teeth of the till
Speaker 1: Amound fiftieth, I kind of we delayed it. So we've
Speaker 1: got another blacket coming out next year. Okay. So people
Speaker 1: who are listening to this and have such fine memories
Speaker 1: of Teaser in the fire Cat I'm one of them.
Speaker 1: Tell me how the new music relates to this or
Speaker 1: does it relate to it. I think it relates to
Speaker 1: the spirit, to the to the soul, you know, because
Speaker 1: I think another word for my music is actually soul
Speaker 1: music is not. I mean, I don't think soul just
Speaker 1: is can be restricted to something with rhythm or you know,
Speaker 1: or to the black communities. It's it's soul is soul
Speaker 1: and uh. And the moment you express yourself deeply, you
Speaker 1: know that that's when it hits and that's when people
Speaker 1: get it. So I think it's it's still hitting those
Speaker 1: kind of those those areas of emotion and spirituality and consciousness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still see that. Well, I should ask about Harold
Speaker 1: Mode because the original Harold Mode it was not a
Speaker 1: great experience for you, Is that right? You didn't like
Speaker 1: the versions that howshould be used in his film. I
Speaker 1: loved most of it, but it was just that these
Speaker 1: two new songs which I sort of recorded very roughly
Speaker 1: in Wally Hyde just down the road in San Francisco
Speaker 1: when he was doing the filming there. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were never meant to go in the film like that.
Speaker 1: I was always meant to do it properly, you know,
Speaker 1: with musicians or whatever beside me. But it was me
Speaker 1: doing all the little bits and pieces, but it ended
Speaker 1: up that he stuck that in the film and now
Speaker 1: it's it's there, like you know, it's history. But actually
Speaker 1: I love it now because it is so rough, it's
Speaker 1: so raw, and it was so fresh and spontaneous. You
Speaker 1: used to talk so much about music being wedded to visuals.
Speaker 1: You did your own illustrations on Tifa the Tillerman and
Speaker 1: on Teasering the Firect. The New Records has a sort
Speaker 1: of full book of Teasering the Firect with the entire
Speaker 1: story chaster do with the Moon, of course, what was
Speaker 1: it like seeing your music so tightly associated with this
Speaker 1: very particular story worry with Harold and mind, Well, it's
Speaker 1: always difficult in a way because you know, your vision
Speaker 1: of the song can never be repeated, and it's in
Speaker 1: your head, it's in your mind. But the genre that
Speaker 1: he created with that film, and and this the message
Speaker 1: of the film, just corresponded perfectly with my music. I mean, trouble.
Speaker 1: You know, at that moment when Maud is being carted
Speaker 1: into the hospital, she's taken, she's taken an overdose. I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get anything more perfect. So he just did it.
Speaker 1: He he just I mean he was high most of
Speaker 1: the time. Maybe that's how he found a little key
Speaker 1: opened the door to my I I wasn't high when
Speaker 1: I said when I when I have puffed occasionally, I
Speaker 1: couldn't write anything. It was just well, if I did,
Speaker 1: it would never sound very good afterwards. That's all. You're
Speaker 1: a pretty clean living guy, even before you're a conversion. Well,
Speaker 1: that's because I learned my lesson in the early career.
Speaker 1: While I got TB and I said, how hold on,
Speaker 1: I want to hold onto my body a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to drop off this planet
Speaker 1: so early. Now I've watched some old interviews with you.
Speaker 1: You were still smoking like a chimney back in the seventies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, that's true, and I finally gave that up. Actually,
Speaker 1: when I became a Muslim, it wasn't as if it
Speaker 1: was forbidden. But I'll tell you. The story was that
Speaker 1: I was actually in a cinema and I was puffing away,
Speaker 1: and then this woman next to me, she pulls the
Speaker 1: most horrible face and looking at me like I'm filth.
Speaker 1: I'll go, oh my god. If my smoking, you know,
Speaker 1: affects others to that degree, I'm going to give it up,
Speaker 1: and actually I did. I I was getting used to
Speaker 1: cutting down anyway, but that was the last straw. I said, no,
Speaker 1: that's it. I don't need this stuff anymore. You see,
Speaker 1: that's very English. And if someone gave a bad look
Speaker 1: at an American smoking, they'd light the whole path. This
Speaker 1: was I'm not sure if Tea or Teaser is your
Speaker 1: best selling album, because you continue to experiment through the seventies.
Speaker 1: You did some really early stuff with synthesizers, you did
Speaker 1: full bands on some of your like a full R
Speaker 1: and B treatment, You did some great, great albums, and
Speaker 1: you continue to do great music. What was it about
Speaker 1: these albums you think that just captured people so strongly.
Speaker 1: I think it was the soul, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of shining, and I think it was like a
Speaker 1: very inspired and you know, when you hear inspired music,
Speaker 1: you just can't do anything but listen to it and
Speaker 1: become enraptured by it. And that's what happened. And I
Speaker 1: was just as much enraptured by my music as anyone else.
Speaker 1: I was the one. I was the first one who
Speaker 1: was hearing it, and I was going, this is great.
Speaker 1: I just hope other people like this, and it got
Speaker 1: to be that. You know that that's that's a miracle
Speaker 1: in a way that these things happen. And so I'm
Speaker 1: always happy and appreciative that, you know, I actually got
Speaker 1: through my music, made it through to people's hearts, and
Speaker 1: it changed a lot of people's lives as well. You
Speaker 1: later wrote the song I never wanted to be a
Speaker 1: rock star? Did you like? Being a rock star? At
Speaker 1: this point was the only thing I knew what to do? Actually,
Speaker 1: so yeah, Well that meant can I change my job
Speaker 1: in the middle of this thing? I don't think I could.
Speaker 1: It was like me saying I want to do something else.
Speaker 1: It was probably a prelude to what was going to happen. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's a fantastic, beautiful production. For
Speaker 1: people who love Teaser and the Firect, they should get it.
Speaker 1: And it was wonderful to talk to you. Thank you
Speaker 1: you too. Thanks the use of Cat Stevens for talking
Speaker 1: about the reissue his classic album Teaser and the Firecat.
Speaker 1: You can check it out on a playlist all of
Speaker 1: our favorite use of Cat Stephens songs at Broken record
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. We
Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record broken Record. It's produced
Speaker 1: with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sadler,
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chaffey. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mio LaBelle Broken Record is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. If you love the show and others
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Speaker 1: Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Mitchment