Tag Archives: Cat Stevens

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Song of the Day #158: ‘How Can I Tell You?’ – Cat Stevens

catstevensThis is the first tune that really hit me as a bona fide, lay it all on the line, love song love song. I heard it for the first time back in high school and was struck by how completely earnest it is. That’s actually a quality Cat Stevens brings to most of his work, but this song in particular.

I suppose these lyrics describe an unrequited love, or at least a long-distance relationship. In that sense it definitely has an aura of melancholy, which Alex should appreciate because she is always pointing out that I am drawn to the melancholy in music and film.

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Song of the Day #45: ‘Here Comes My Baby’ – Cat Stevens

I’ll be honest, I’ve never known the specifics of Cat Stevens’ conversion to Islam and later controversies. I just did a quick read of his Wikipedia entry and, as I suspected, it’s not as extreme as I’d thought.

Back in high school, though, I remember hearing the most popular Cat Stevens story, that he supported the fatwa calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie, and being totally depressed by it. I had a couple Cat Stevens albums (Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat) and I just loved them. How could the ‘Peace Train’ guy support the death of another artist?

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