Cat Stevens: Making

“It seems as if I am making a comeback but I have never really been away.”

Cat Stevens

Interview for Melody Maker http://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2014/06/cat-stevens-1970-interview.html with Chris Charlesworth (July 1970)
Context: It seems as if I am making a comeback but I have never really been away. It’s very strange because the whole attitude changes and everything is turned inside out. Now I am seeing the shiny side again. <!--
It has made all the difference to me because I had to have that break.

“I was a sitting target, in a way, for anybody who wanted to make some kind of headline.”

Cat Stevens

Interview on CBS News Sunday Morning (12 August 2007)
Context: I was a sitting target, in a way, for anybody who wanted to make some kind of headline. … I certainly never supported the Fatwa, but when I was asked about … the actual principle of blasphemy and capital punishment, well, like the Bible, I said, "You know, yeah, it's there, it's in the Koran." And I couldn't deny that.

Way

“I want to just get heart-to-heart, make sure people understand some of the real subtle beauties of what I've discovered.”

Cat Stevens

On getting back into producing new music, interviewed on "Yusuf Islam's New Album" at CBS News (12 August 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2226452n&tag=related;photovideo
Context: A big turning point happened when my son brought back a guitar into the house — You know, 'cause I'd given all those guitars away to charity — way back in 1979 and hadn't really touched the instrument, you know, for like two decades. … So then one day … when everybody's asleep and nobody's watching, I pick it up — and lo and behold, I still know where to put my fingers and out comes this music. I said, "Maybe I've got another job to do." And in this time and period it's probably the best thing I can do because lecturing, politics, God, I've got nothing to do with that. I want to just get heart-to-heart, make sure people understand some of the real subtle beauties of what I've discovered.

People , Beauty , Understanding , Heart

“I had to learn my faith and look after my family, and I had to make priorities. But now I've done it all and there's a little space for me to fill in the universe of music again.”

Cat Stevens

On getting back into the music business, as quoted in "The Billboard Q and A: Yusuf Islam" by Nigel Williamson, in Billboard Magazine (17 November 2006)

Family , Faith , Music , Learning

“Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live; will you tell us when to die?
I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?”

Cat Stevens

Where Do the Children Play?
Song lyrics, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

Children , Way , Change , Cry

“I wanted a break. I had been on the road more or less since I was 18, you know? And I hadn't known any other life, other than, you know, hotel rooms and concerts and records and studios and press conferences. … and to me, here was a chance to jump off that kind of wagon and see life for real. You know, actually my last album was called Back to Earth. So that was the meaning of it. I wanted to join the human race again. I didn't want to be a star. I didn't want to continue with that thing, because so much illusion and non-reality is connected to it. I wanted to be real. And so I — I kind of — I found an opportunity. And the actual point about music was — the imam who I met and who I first embraced Islam with in London's Central Mosque, he actually told me to continue making records.”

Cat Stevens

On the abandonment of his music career after converting to Islam, on Larry King Live (7 October 2004) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/07/lkl.01.html

Life , Music , Star , Reality

“Baby, I love you
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world
It's hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world
I'll always remember you like a child”

Cat Stevens

Wild World
Song lyrics, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

Love , World , Smile , Hope

“Now I’m not making love to anyone’s wishes,
Only for that light I see
‘Cause when I’m dead and lowered low in my grave,
That’s gonna be the only thing that’s left of me”

Cat Stevens

Sitting
Song lyrics, Catch Bull at Four (1972)

Love , Making love , Light , Dead

“Yesterday I was on the edge
Hoping everything was going to work itself out
A good honest man doing the work of God
Trying to make things better for Him
A lover of life in a school for fools
Trying to find another way to survive”

Cat Stevens

Music
Song lyrics, Buddha and the Chocolate Box (1974)