Wednesday, Jan 13, 2021 • 18min
Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Father and Son
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The legendary singer/songwriter Yusuf / Cat Stevens released his first album in 1967. He’s a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his albums have sold millions. In 2020, he released Tea for the Tillerman², a re-imagining of his hit 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman. In the song “Father & Son,” he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached this song in a kind of astonishing way—he recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son, he used a live recording of himself from 1970, taken from a show he played at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. So the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart. In this episode, the 200th episode of Song Exploder, Yusuf / Cat Stevens tells the story of how he created, and then re-created “Father & Son.”
For more, visit songexploder.net/yusuf-cat-stevens http://songexploder.net/yusuf-cat-stevens
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Cat Stevens
Hrishikesh Hirway
Transcript
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Hrishikesh Hirway
00:00
You're listening to
Song Exploder
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Hrishikesh Hirway
.Share
Break
Hrishikesh Hirway
01:27
The legendary singer-songwriter
Yusuf / Cat Stevens
released his first album in 1967. He's a member of "The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame" and his albums have sold millions. In 2020, he released Tea For The Tillerman
to a reimagining of his hit 1970 album, Tea For The Tillerman
.Share
01:46
In the song,
Father And Son
, he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached the song in kind of an astonishing way. He recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son, he used a live recording of himself from 1970 taken from a show, he played at The Troubadour
in Los Angeles
, so the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart.Share
02:10
In this episode, the 200th episode of
Song Exploder
. Yusuf Cat Stevens
tells the story of how he created and then recreated Father And Son.
Share
Cat Stevens
02:25
But take your time, think a lot, why, think of everything you've got, for you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not. My name is
Yusuf Cat Stevens
.Share
Hrishikesh Hirway
02:39
The story begins with songs and lyrics that weren't originally intended for an album.
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Cat Stevens
02:44
They grew out of the whole project which I was working on, which was a musical. I've always wanted to write a musical because I lived in the West End and so therefore I was surrounded by theaters, and it shaped the background, the soundtrack to my life. And so I was working with a man called
Nigel Hawthorne
, a well known actor, comedian and a writer. And we were chosen as a subject for the musical, "The Russian Revolution".Share
03:12
Well the name of the musical was "Revolution" and there was this story going on in the countryside, this Russian family that lived on a farm, you know out there in the outskirts where his son's name was Sasha and the father's name well, he was dad, you know his father, and the son in this scene was wanting to join the revolution.
Share
03:42
But the father loves you know, he loves you, that's why he wants you to stay home.
Share
03:47
It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy, you're still young, that's your fault, there's so much you have to know, find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry, look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.
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04:14
I think as a writer, you know you take on all sorts of characters and personalities, but when you're writing for a musical of course you have to do that much more seriously, you must enter the character that you're writing about.
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04:32
But a lot of my songs were very, very autobiographical, I would say, and so there was always two sides of me, you know, there was the side which you know wanted to get out and do things on the other side, so I kind of like things the way they are for now.
Share
04:45
So it was me talking to me in two different states of mind, and you know all the nuances of what a young man would be thinking when there's a revolution outside his front door, you know, that was pretty simple to put together and the words simply followed.
Share
05:01
The song itself wasn't difficult to perform as to people because I just simply shifted the octave up for the son and down for the father. And that kind of has its own impact on the emotion.
Share
05:14
How can I try to explain?, when I do, he turns away again, it's always been the same, same old story.
Share
05:30
At that point we wanted to get some backing for the musical. So my manager, he had some connections with some pretty rich people, we met one of them. And when he heard this thing, he wasn't really interested, but he knew someone who was in the music business, and his name was
Chris Blackwell
, Chris Blackwell
of course ran Island Records
.Share
05:51
Island Records
was a really elite label with real leaning towards allowing artists to express themselves, well, that's pretty great. So we played some of the songs when we got to Father And Son
, I think his jaw dropped, and he said, "look, I want to talk some more about this".Share
06:10
But then when we met next, he offered me, you know, a record contract and that was really, you know, they took me right off course as far as my musical was concerned. So I said, "yeah, well, okay, you know", he said, "we'll put you together with a producer" and that's where I got introduced to
Paul Samwell-Smith
. I used to go and listen to his music, bass player with The Yardbirds
. So I used to dance to his music in the club and just down the road from where I lived in Oxford Street.Share
06:39
So we worked through all the songs and of course one of them would have been
Father And Son
, it was, but I didn't like the way it turned out, so it never ended up on the first album that I recorded called Mona Bone Jakon
. So the second album was where we were really primed, I think after the first and the second one just seemed to work, so that was Tea for the Tillerman
.Share
07:05
From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen, now there's a way and I know that I have to go away, I know I have to go.
Share
07:27
When I sang that song in
Morgan Studios
, which is where we finally got hold of the song. It was a moment where I was singing the son's part, where I could actually hear the timbre, the sound of my own father's voice and that was very strange because I was singing the son's part, but I got my father's voice up there.Share
07:47
So he was from
Cyprus
, so he had a very strong Mediterranean passionate side, you knew when he was angry, and so I got that kind of anger out of me in the role of the son, and it was a very important moment in my recording, memories that moment where I sounded like my father, but I was singing the son's part, strange.Share
08:09
All the times that I've cried, keeping all the things I knew inside, it's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
Share
08:22
But dad was always supportive of me, he was much more relaxed with me, and you know, he bought my first guitar, you know, he didn't quite understand what the music business was all about, but he thought, "well if it makes a living it's okay". And he used to always ask my brother "how's Stevie?" Because, you know, he used to call me Stevie, he said "Steve, is he doing alright?" And David would said, "yeah, he's doing very well, Dad".
Share
Hrishikesh Hirway
08:45
In fact,
Tea For The Tillerman
went on to go triple-platinum and in 2003, Rolling Stone
included it in their list of the greatest albums of all time.Share
Cat Stevens
08:57
I didn't really intend to do another version, to be honest, but it was my son's idea when we were talking about what to do for the 50th anniversary of the release of
Tea for the Tillerman
, so what we're going to do? And he suggested this idea, "why won't we'd record it again, because, you know, you're singing it kind of differently today", I said "well, that's a good idea".Share
09:17
It was nothing about doing an old kind of replica of what I'd done before. I just wanted to live them again as I do when I sing them, you know, live. And that was the idea, so, that's how we got back to recording
Father And Son
again.Share
09:32
My son has a lot of good ideas. I mean, it was, again, my son who suggested maybe we could pick, you know, a voice from the 1970s or some of the old recordings and that could be the son, and then I could be singing the father's part. "I don't think that's going to work".
Share
09:48
Using the original vocal was an idea, but it's kind of a repeat, and I didn't want to just do that. So, we wanted to use something from that moment in time, but something new. Something different that other people haven't heard. But you know what? We found this great recording of me singing
Father and Con
in The Troubadour
back in 1970.Share
10:11
If they were right, I'd agree. But it's them. They know not me now, there's a way. And I know that I have to go. I thought this might work.
Share
10:36
The first thing to do was actually to lay down the whole song.
Share
10:47
So, that's basically what we did. We laid down the whole song, including the part which will be taken over by the 1970s version. All the times that I've cried, keeping all the things I knew inside, it's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
Share
11:08
Anyway, when we finally got into the studio, there were lots of ideas and this was one of them, you know, to have the son shipped in from 1970. There were other things too, I had actually been involved in putting on a kind of a musical again, I wrote this thing called
Moon Shadow
.Share
11:24
And because we did that and because
Father And Son
was in, it would come up with all these new ideas, one of them was this counterpoint melody, which I really loved, and it's played by a slide guitar.Share
11:37
And voices coming.
Share
12:09
The band I used for most of the album of
Tea for the Tillerman 2
with the guys that I play live with. And my songs more recently have turned towards the electric guitar much, much more. And so the other interesting little rift I found was really, really lovely. And I found it kind of gave it a modern touch.Share
12:30
When I go out live, you know, people obviously want to hear the songs that they love, the songs that they grew up with and I sing those songs, but I do need to try and make it more real for my own purposes and to meet the emotion of the song again. And so yes, I find new ways of expressing something of myself today in those songs.
Share
13:14
It's a choice, you know, whether or not you're going to add strings or not, but the song certainly deserves strings. If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know, not me, now there's a way and I know that I have to go away, I know I have to go.
Share
13:40
One of the lyrics I find very intriguing and which I love to think about. It says "there's a way I know I have to go away" that second away, could be either a way or it could be away I have to go anyway, just intrigues me.
Share
13:60
Even though, you would expect that I would start to like, take the father's role, I certainly don't, I still wait for the son's part, and then I want to sing it much more than I want to sing the father's part. The father's part is great, you know, you go through, you swim through it, and it's fine, you know, he's kind of casual, he's a bit concerned, you know, when you settle down, you know, sit down, just take it easy, yeah.
Share
14:25
But yeah, I want to get back to the son, there's a way I know I've got to go, so I always choose the son's dynamic because there are still things to march about, there's still things to shout about, still things to sing about, I think that's the world that we live in, it's never going to change
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Hrishikesh Hirway
14:52
And now here's the 2020 version of
Father And Son
by Yusuf Cat Stevens
in its entirety.Share
16:21
For more, visit songexploder. net. You'll find links to buy or stream both versions of
Father And Son
and you can watch the stop-motion animated video that was made for the new version of the song.Share
Break
Hrishikesh Hirway
19:60
This episode of Song Exploder was made by me
Hrishikesh Hirway
with editing help from Teeny Lieberson and Casey Deal. Carlos Lerma makes illustrations for each episode, which you can find on the show's website and Instagram. Special thanks to Jessica Powell and the folks at Audioshake for letting me try out their technology.Share
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20:45
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from PRX.Share
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Hrishikesh Hirway
Cat Stevens