Wild World
Love this song, love this guy’s energy and his discussion of the song. It is indeed a “rather peculiar” melody, but it sure does work:
[ADDENDUM: Here’s an older post of mine about Cat Stevens.]
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
I heard this song on Sirius the other day and the host said Stevens wrote it for a girlfriend he was breaking up with as their careers were going in different directions.
It is a great song.
Wagner wrote great music too.
It’s a very nice and beautiful song, of course with this man he has done very nice talk/discussion about the song and music.
Just excuse me to be out of context, this also something I knew Neo like it
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/03/07/arts/07BALLET-BODY-CONTACT/07BALLET-BODY-CONTACT-superJumbo-v2.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
What Is a Ballet Body?
With performances on pause, many dancers are rethinking their relationship to weight.
NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/arts/dance/what-is-a-ballet-body.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage
Great song… Cat Stevens decided to become a Muslim… he is now known as Yusuf Islam (and has a few things under that name)… there are other great songs he wrote before he stopped… like Father and Son…
In a way his career was cut short
not like Jim Croce.. but there were many others whose careers were ended early
who knows what Freddie mercury would have done.. Hendrix died before 30.. So did Holly, Joplin, there is a long list…
and while he didnt die, the result was much the same
I never cared for Cat Stevens, much preferring Gordon Lightfoot’s contributions to this type of song writing. But the field was full of these ballad rock guys, like Jim Croce, John Denver, and a little later than this song, the Bob Welch Fleetwood Mac, which is my favorite Fleetwood Mac period.
I loved Cat Stevens’s music when I was a kid.
I think there was a bit of thumbing his nose at his father when he decided to convert to Islam. He father was Greek Cypriot and he converted to islam shortly after Turkey invaded Cyprus.
His dad must’ve been thrilled.
Apparently, his brother had converted to Judaism. Of all things, he gave Stevens a Quran he picked up on a trip to Israel. Maybe if his doofus brother had given him a Tanakh, or a Siddur, Cat Stevens would now be Israel Zemer or something like that, and have palled around with Shlomo Carlebach…
Steve (Cat Stevens) must have been something back then. Among others Joni Mitchell was fascinated by him and Carly Simon wrote ‘Anticipation’ about him while waiting for him to arrive at her apartment.
Griffin:
He’s no slouch now. Looks really good for his age. The voice is a little worse for wear, but he can still sing.
I’m glad to see the baby in the video, suggesting the context of parenthood. The lyrics don’t perfectly work that way, especially the ones that condescend a little — but some of the lines come pretty close, and the song has more power for me that way than as a love song. There have been times when the song has put a lump in my throat, making me think of my now-grown-up daughter a few years back, as she perched on the edge of the nest, ready to fly.
This is from the album Tea for the Tillerman, iirc, lots of high quality songs.
This album’s music was used in the cult film Harold and Maude about a young depressed teenage boy and a high energy life-affirming elderly woman who fall in love.
The movie ran for decades in Detroit without pause. Seriously.
Wild world?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ebay-halts-sales-offensive-dr-seuss-books-allows-mein-kampf
…but White Supremacists…
Yes, indeedy, this guy is terrific.
Like the new daughter too 🙂 🙂
I see neo is making good on her new-found interest in song-writing.
It’s a great video. The musician doing it is a great performer. I assume the list of thanks at the end are his Patreon supporters. This seems like a lot more fun than trudging down to the end of the street to old lady McGuillicote’s cat fur infested basement for piano lessons once a week.
I still don’t understand guitar tabs. First, why are they not a violation of copyright? Posting the notes on a staff are, but representing them on a tab are not. Makes no sense.
Second, they seem like cheating. Piano players can look at a chord written out Cmaj7, and know where to put their fingers. Why can’t guitar players do that? Why do they need pictures with strings and frets, showing where to put their fingers? Saxophone music doesn’t show a tube with pads with dark circles over where to put your fingers? Why can’t guitar players learn to read music, like very other musician?
More like Insane World…
JimNorCal, I was in Paris the first time I saw Harold and Maude, as a student in about 1974. The movie was subtitled in French, and most of the humor in English didn’t translate well. The group of three Americans that I was with kept laughing — in this weird tragic movie about a concentration camp survivor and a boy who kills himself — and the entire theater, it seemed, would turn around each time to stare at us.
Weirdly, my best high school friend’s sister dated Stevens briefly and so did my San Francisco therapist. (They were both good-looking young women.)
My therapist dated him during the time he was transitioning into Islam. She said that Stevens was disillusioned with the corruption of the pop music scene and found something more spiritually solid in Islam.
Stevens said his brother showed him the Quran and Stevens just fell into the book. It happens. Too bad Islam is such a violent, supremacist religion.
His conversion was in the late seventies. Though there was some curious foreshadowing in the song, “The Boy with the Moon and Star On His Head” from the album, “Catch Bull at Four” (1972) The “Moon and Star” could be read easily enough as the “Star and Crescent” — the standard icon for Islam.
“Catch Bull at Four” is otherwise more a Buddhist album. The title for instance is the fourth panel, “Catching the Bull,” of the “Ten Oxherding Pictures” describing the Zen stages of moving towards enlightenment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls
I always liked Cat Stevens music. My favorite was “Moonshadow”.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned the controversy he was involved with over Salmon Rushdie and the fatwa against him…if I remember it correctly Stevens agreed with the fatwa (do I spell that correctly?) that Rushdie should be killed. This created a backlash against Stevens and a lot of DJs refused to play his music…if I remember correctly….
What a great story, Mrs Whatsit! I can well imagine.
“Why can’t guitar players learn to read music, like every other musician?”
How do you get the guitar player to turn down?
Put some sheet music in front of him.
“Tea for the Tillerman” is one of my all-time favorite albums. The follow-ups, “Teaser and the Firecat” and “Catch Bull at Four” were none too shabby either.
However, after those albums Stevens seemed to lose the thread and his record sales suffered too. One might argue these were factors in his disillusionment with the record biz.
I took it badly when he converted to Islam.
I’ve never been much of a folkie. The daughter has better taste in music than he does.
However, one of Stevens’ big loves was Patti D’Arbanville. “Wild World” was about her, as well as the more obvious “Lady D’Arbanville.”
I knew her from the ultimate movie about surfers (as opposed to surfing film) by John Milius, “Big Wednesday.” She played William Katt’s romantic partner. She was a honey, too, let me tell you.
She came to Hollywood via Andy Warhol’s less reputable film, “Flesh.” She never cracked the top tier. The last I saw of her, she was being gunned down in a Sopranos episode.
Oh very young what will you leave us this time?
were only dancing on this earth for a short while…
I would rather listen to dweller on the threshold and other hits and not so hits by Van Morrison.. [a very shy man]
Re: “Harold and Maude”…
Mrs. Whatsit:
I can understand your reservations about H&M. However, it was one of my favorites. I can still watch it and see it as a celebration of life, rather than the opposite.
Harold is the child of rich San Francisco aristocracy. His mother has no clue who Harold is and is constantly pushing him into her idea of what he should be. His pretend suicides are his attempts to get her to see him as he really is. (It’s Hal Ashby and the sixties mentality.)
Harold meets Maude at a funeral, which he attends as part of his play with death and she attends because she’s about to turn 70 and has the idea that’s a good age to check out.
Still, it’s a Hollywood movie and it’s a “cute meet.” Maude (played by Ruth Gordon no less!) takes hold of the poor boy and brings him back to life.
She’s what we now call a “Magic Pixie Dream Girl,” the Hollywood concoction going back (at least) to Kate Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby” of the uninhibited woman who captivates the depressed male protagonist and brings him out of his funk into Loving Life. Even though Gordon is really way too old for the role, but she’s Ruth Gordon, damn it!
The film ends with Harold playing the banjo she gave him and you can tell, he’s changed for good. Cat’s music was the perfect soundtrack.
____________________________________
Well if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are
–Cat Stevens, “If you want to sing out”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDq36YD1ESM
Here is a picture of Ruth Gordon (Maude) and the filmmaker Hal Ashby.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067185/mediaviewer/rm29599744/
I only saw the film on the small screen back then, but remember doing a fair bit of chuckling in the first half.
TommyJay:
Yep, that was Ruth Gordon and Hal Ashby. There’s a tender doco, “Being Hal Ashby,” which I recommend. I didn’t realize he was quite so strange … and loved by so many.
Ruth Gordon was a genuine firecracker on screen and off. She was her own Maude character. I don’t think any other actress of senior years could have pulled that off.
She was also the wife of the sinister couple next door in “Rosemary’s Baby,” who lure Mia Farrow into their satanic scheme. Chills!
Mrs. Whatsit,
That’s a great image! Thanks for sharing your story.
And who played Bernard Marx in the film adaptation of “1984?”
And who played Harold in “Harold and Maude?”
Bud Cort!
See, everything eventually connects at neo’s place.
Bud Cort had an unusual life. As he matured, the big-head, big-eyed thing didn’t work so well (and wasn’t helped by a horrible traffic accident, requiring a whole lot of reconstructive surgery).
On the positive side, “Harold and Maude” so charmed Groucho Marx that Cort became Groucho’s live-in companion for a few years before Marx died.
huxley: “Mrs. Whatsit: I can understand your reservations about H&M.”
I didn’t think she had reservations? It WAS a weird tragic film. I spent a lot of time laughing too, when I first viewed it.
I just didn’t have a bunch of non-native-speakers turning to stare at me in disbelief LOL
JimNorCal:
Weird, sure. Tragic? I argued the other side.
“…this weird tragic movie about a concentration camp survivor and a boy who kills himself ” does not capture the film properly. Hal Ashby was the director, not Agnes Varda.
Maude’s concentration camp history is a passing detail. Harold stages a number of suicides for his mother’s “benefit,” but doesn’t kill himself.
It was a hilarious film for those who got the language and context and didn’t mind laughing about death or suicide.
Heck, H&M made it to the Criterion Collection!
As for Cat Stevens’ conversion to Islam and the Rushdie fatwa, as well as several other things about him, here’s an older post of mine that goes into a lot of that.
I too am not a “folkie,” but some of Yusef’s older stuff doesn’t send me diving for the radio dial. My favorite is also, “Moonshadow.”
There used to be an animation festival that would tour art house movie theaters annually featuring the “best” animation shorts of the year. One of the years (likely the late ’70s or early ’80s) had a cute cartoon someone had done to the song, “Moonshadow.”
Wow! Here it is! https://youtu.be/x0awe6OJB0o
Looks like it’s from 1977. That is weird. I just found something I last saw with my sister in a movie theater 43 years ago on this Internet thing in less than 30 seconds. Very strange. Narrated by Spike Milligan. I didn’t recall that part.
Cat Stevens can go eph a dog with every sexual ailment known to man.
As noted already — the guy who wrote “Peace Train” converted to Islam later in life.
When Salman Rushdie wrote his eeeeevil book, Stevens supported the million-dollar Fatwah on his head.
So much for “Peace”. It just got railroaded.
}}} But the field was full of these ballad rock guys,
David: You missed David Gates, of Bread. I think the last song hit he had was the solo number for the Movie “Goodbye Girl”, which cemented Marsha Mason’s, and particularly Richard Dreyfus’ careers. Bread had a lot of wonderful numbers that qualified for “Ballad Rock”.
}}} Harold and Maude about a young depressed teenage boy and a high energy life-affirming elderly woman who fall in love.
The movie ran for decades in Detroit without pause. Seriously.
It’s an awesome black comedy. His family is rich, and his widowed mother pretty much treats him like furniture. She decides to get him a girlfriend, so arranges interviews with various girls. His response is to act out by faking suicides (which are hilariously well done).
His mother buys him a jaguar sports car. He modifies it to look like a midget hearse!
It’s great dark comedy. It’s pre-MTV, so the pacing is probably a bit slow — pretty sure I already discussed the eras of movies, the latest one being “pre/post-MTV”, which is a dividing line for the pacing of movies: as the 80s moved on, the pacing of movies picked up considerably, and it takes some getting used to to watch older movies if you’re used to new ones, as so many people are these days (40+ years!!)
But it’s fun to see the dysfunctional relationship he has with his mother, his response, and then the wonderful performance by Ruth Gordon as his love-interest.
Thinking a bit more about Mrs. Whatsit’s experience of “Harold and Maude” in a Paris theater, I wonder if the French were unable to appreciate the film’s black humor because they were used to European films.
In post-WW2 European films suicide is a fetish to show that a film is serious and upholds the Eternal Post-War Verities:
* The universe is entirely indifferent to human existence.
* Life is meaningless.
* Suicide is a valid response to life.
In the 90s I rented three European films in a row in which the leading character committed suicide or dies self-destructively. I decided to stop watching European films.
It’s not an absolute rule but it takes really good word of mouth on a European (Continental) film for me to bother.
huxley, I wrote too fast and didn’t make my comment clear enough. I fully agree with your take on H & M and I love the movie. I was attempting to describe the perception of the French audience around us, not my own. They apparently believed, at least at first, that the movie was tragic because it contained so much dark imagery and the black humor in the dialogue didn’t translate — and thus couldn’t understand why we would laugh at it. I’m sure most of them had figured it out by the end, but by that time we had done a fair amount of chuckling — though we did try to contain ourselves so that we wouldn’t be Ugly Americans — and had received quite a few stares. Unfortunately, it was also funny that we were being stared at, and that made it even harder not to laugh.
You’re right, of course, that Harold never actually kills himself and that the ending is redemptive. It’s been a long time since the last time I saw the movie and my memory sprang some large leaks. I had also forgotten that Cat Stevens was on the soundtrack until JimNorCal’s post. Thanks to both of you for the reminders — I’m thinking it’s time to track it down and watch it again.
Mrs. Whatsit:
Thanks for the clarification!
Last night I watched the early part of the film got as far as this fun exchange Harold has with his psychiatrist. I’m not sure how “benefit” would come across in subtitles:
____________________________________________________
Psychiatrist : Tell me, Harold, how many of these, eh, *suicides* have you performed?
Harold : An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Psychiatrist : Well, just give me a rough estimate.
Harold : A rough estimate? I’d say
Harold [savoring the thought] : fifteen.
Psychiatrist : Fifteen?
Harold : That’s a rough estimate.
Psychiatrist : Were they all done for your mother’s benefit?
Harold : No. No, I would not say “benefit.”
I have only ever met one Maud. My grandmother. My grandfather’s name was Harold.
I love the movie too.
It really is a great song. Loved his music in the early 1970’s.
I’ll never forgive Hal Ashby for destroying that custom Jaguar E-Type shooting brake. Fortunately, someone recreated it: https://petrolicious.com/articles/building-this-jaguar-e-type-hearse-was-quite-the-undertaking
Johann Amadeus Metesky,
That was an interesting article. Thanks for sharing it. I would definitely own and drive that car, if I could!
Loved Cat Stevens then, still love him now just as much.
I like almost all Cat Stevens’ hits. Many mentioned above, especially ’71. A high school friend’s mom worked at A&M records so he gave me the 3 best albums (Tee…, Teaser, Bull). [Also 2 of Rick Wakeman’s solo albums.]
Have Stevens greatest hits CD, including the quirky “Here Comes my Baby” – which was a small 2 min. hit for The Tremolos*.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrwVwKimw70
“You never walk alone,
and you’re forever talking on the phone.”
Here’s the Cat Stevens version from an early ’67 Mathew & Son album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsYpSHHqsEs
On a prior thread, there was talk about poetry.
Today’s “popular music”, with lyrics, is where the modern successful poets find expression, and moola. (cash $$$)
I don’t like most poetry, especially that prose that is so unmusical. I rather do like most Dr. Seuss, and my kids loved him, too. (Banned by the Woke-nazis)
Pop music is usually a great tune, plus something interesting musically plus some hook, and some kind of poetic lyrics. Sometimes the lyrics are most important, but I’d argue the music parts are about 60%, lyrics 10%, singer 30% as a rough average. (Dylan is more lyrics 60% … maybe Cohen around 60%, too)
The Tremolos got 3 hits from roughly translating Italian songs into English and singing them. I actually have translated a couple of Slovak songs into English, but no good singers singing any, yet. Nor even asked. One of this year’s Could Do projects.
Tom Grey:
Another pop/folk musician for whom the lyrics are probably 60% is Jackson Browne.
Tom Grey:
By the way, I am gobsmacked to learn that “Here Comes My Baby” was written by Cat Stevens. I remember the Tremoloes’ version well.
Another surprise I’ve gotten recently is learning that Jackson Browne wrote the lyrics to “She’s Gotta Be Somebody’s Baby.” Here he is performing it live, a great rarity.
And of course the Bee Gees wrote tons of songs most people don’t know they wrote – for example, “Island in the Stream.” Here they perform it themselves circa 1997.
We commenters all like to gobsmack Neo, whenever we can!
But I think Jackson Browne is as much music as lyrics, tho he was never a favorite of mine – not quite interesting enough either with music nor lyrics. This fine surprise is a fine 2 min song … that goes on for 4 min.
But I looked up his Greatest Hits, one of my fav Eagle’s songs was his
Take It Easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHC_Y-l1YQU
I recall getting a ticket at about 1 am in Winslow Arizona while driving from Annapolis to CA for Christmas in our 2 week break – took 3 of us less than 3 days. [New Cannonball Rally records are less than 24 hrs! NY >> LA]
I like the Eagles version better.
Most of Browne’s “hits” I don’t recognize by name. Did somebody else do “Somebody’s Baby” as a hit? Or do you just remember it from Fast Times at Ridgemont High?
On the Greatest hits, the CD ends but the YouTube goes on … and some guy starts singing Chinese songs. Does that happen much to you? There’s a Cohen YouTube Greatest hist, without Take Manhattan, with some Chinese woman singing at the end. And then Sinatra?? (Very good year)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyJZqy6GeEU
Cat Steven’s hits include better voice, lyrics, and much better music.
BeeGees too – the “Islands in the Stream” with lyrics, by itself, was somehow MUCH better for me than when watching the whole concert. Tho I miss “Lonely Days” that way. It’s a far better poem, when I read it, than I thought when just casually listening to it (waiting for hits I know I like). And Dolly is not among my favorites, nor is country – but this song should make it less of surprise that Barry moved to Nashville.
My least favorite Lovin’ Spoonful Greatist Hits song is …
Nashville Cats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZqgFyj5uTo
I don’t always skip it, but sometimes – tho the lyrics are fine.
Tom Grey:
Maybe “Noshville Katz” could change your mind. It’s about a real deli in Nashville.
____________________________________
Noshville Katz– he runs a kosher deli!
Noshville Katz– the only place in town!
Noshville Katz– it’s not like you’re in Brooklyn.
Noshville Katz– the only one around!
Well, there’s thirteen-hundred fifty-two different restaurants in
Noshville.
And you can eat anything from a hominy grit to a Contac time pill.
But there’s only one place to get a half-sour pickle or a corn beef
sandwich in Noshville,
Just ask anybody how to get to Katz’s if you’re looking to eat well!
–“Noshville Katz,” by the Lovin’ Cohens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMN4cZisSGw
Tom Grey:
Jackson Browne plus Glenn Frey wrote “Take It Easy.” Here’s the story.
Tom Grey:
Jackson Browne himself did the hit version of “Somebody’s Baby.” Take a look. That was a big hit for him. Another pretty big hit for him was “Doctor My Eyes,” which I think is a really fine song with great lyrics. And then of course there’s “Take It Easy.” I also very much like “The Pretender” and “For a Dancer.” The latter has phenomenally good lyrics, I think.
Jackson Browne was damn talented right out of the gate.
At the age of 18 he was partners romantically and musically with the mysterious Nico of the Velvet Underground. He wrote three of the songs for her first solo album (“Chelsea Girl” — quite underrated) and played guitar on them, including the best song IMO, which he wrote when he was 16.
–Nico, “These Days”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_z_UEuEMAo
At that time Leonard Cohen was totally infatuated with Nico and trying desperately to get something going, but she told him he was too old. He was 32. (Yes, everything comes back to Leonard Cohen eventually.)
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/leonard-cohen-met-nico-relationship/
Cohen’s song, “Joan of Arc,” was inspired by Nico. A few others too, though not in obvious ways.
Huxley, did you get Noshville Katz from Dr. Demento? (Irving, the 142nd fastest gun, in the West). Or maybe Weird Al. Fun lyrics. They do NOT have good pastrami here. 🙁
Yes, I sort of liked Doctor My Eyes — but not enough to learn the, admittedly on reading, pretty good lyrics.
Nice note about Nico. There’s a strange album of her and very deep voiced Kevin Ayers, John Cale (who sang Hallelujah on Shrek!), Nico, and Eno.
June 1, 1974 https://my.mail.ru/inbox/vl-promsij/video/70692/227759.html
Lots of “alternative” stuff.
Eno had a couple of cool alternative pop albums I liked, with interesting music. Baby’s on Fire, Live.
Nico was in Velvet Underground with Lou Reed and John Cale – and was probably giving head to Jim Morrison in the elevator at a Andy Warhol (from Slovakia!) party. She does a good cover of “The End”.
Also in “Deutschland uber alles” – but that’s neo-nazist.
Distinctive flat voice.
Didn’t know about her and Jackson Browne, nor that he wrote (the flat) “These Days”.
Pingback:A bit of Cat Stevens – Tom Grey – Families, Freedom, Responsibility
Huxley, did you get Noshville Katz from Dr. Demento?
Tom Grey:
I was on a Lovin’ Spoonful kick and ran across “Noshville.” John Sebastian and the Spoonful did some of the most perfect pop songs ever written. I still melt when I hear “Darling, Be Home Soon”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAur4CWJIPw
Then, there’s “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind” when the narrator falls in love with two sisters and Sebastian drops his voice to sing the father’s part:
Better go home, son, and make up your mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txTEhgReZUA
I’ve long loved “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind” – and my kids have heard it, multiple times, on our previously frequent trips to Lignano, Italy, for a couple of weeks of summer vacation at one of the nearest beaches – only 7 hrs drive away.
Of all my own 60s – 80s songs, that one is the most “sung” by any of the 3 now young adults.
“To say yes to one, and leave the other behind”.
“Better go home, son, and make up your mind” (in a fun deep voice).