{"id":46913,"date":"2025-09-18T14:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/18\/cat-stevens-memoir-cat-on-the-road-to-findout-what-we-learned\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:05:19","slug":"cat-stevens-memoir-cat-on-the-road-to-findout-what-we-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/18\/cat-stevens-memoir-cat-on-the-road-to-findout-what-we-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Cat Stevens’ Memoir ‘Cat: On the Road to Findout’: What We Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tAs music memoirs go, Yusuf<\/a>\/Cat Stevens<\/a>\u2019 Cat on the Road to Findout <\/a><\/em>couldn\u2019t have been more aptly titled. Over the last nearly 60 years, few in pop have traveled such a twisty path, as the bearded pop troubadour went from Cat Stevens<\/a>, teen idol, to Cat Stevens, becalmed balladeer, to Yusuf Islam, man of religion and occasional music. Along the way, he battled tuberculosis, almost drowned, had a fling with Carly Simon, and became one of the first major pop stars to be canceled after he weighed in (in ways he felt were misunderstood, mishandled, or misinterpreted) on the Ayatollah Khomeini declaring a\u00a0fatwa<\/em>\u00a0against writer Salman Rushdie in 1989.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat tale is laid out in the book, published Thursday in the U.K. and Oct. 7 in this country. Below, some tea from the tillerman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere\u2019s a connection between Cat Stevens\u2019 stage name and his first major girlfriend.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tHow did Steven Georgiou become Cat Stevens in 1965? As he writes, part of the inspiration came from then-current film titles like Cat Ballou <\/em>and What\u2019s New Pussycat? <\/em>and partly from a hit at the time called \u201cWalkin\u2019 My Cat Named Dog.\u201d A girlfriend also told him he looked like a cat when she saw him reclining on a couch. As he says, \u201cAll I did was add \u2018Cat\u2019 \u00a0to my first name, shifting Steven from head to tail: Hey-ho! \u2018Cat Stevens\u2019 was born.\u201d That girlfriend \u2014 Christine, whom he calls his first \u201creal love\u201d \u2014 would also inspire the decidedly non-catty classic \u201cThe First Cut Is the Deepest.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1966, Yusuf scored his first hit with the whimsical symphonic pop of \u201cI Love My Dog.\u201d There was only one problem: He didn\u2019t own such an animal. \u201cJournalists were certain to pounce on me with probing questions about my own fluffy, beloved friend,\u201d Yusuf writes. Luckily, he was walking the streets of London\u2019s Soho district one night and came upon a stray black dachshund tied to a street post. Yusuf quickly adopted the dog, whom he named Willemina, and now had an actual pet he could talk about while promoting the record.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\t\u201cAnticipation\u201d isn\u2019t the only Carly Simon song that may have been written about him.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tIn 1971, Yusuf met Carly Simon, who was booked to open his show at the Troubadour club in L.A. \u201cTouring puts you in sensitive, close contact with those journeying with you,\u201d he writes, adding, \u201cIt was difficult to keep away from Carly,\u201d and the two \u201cgot to know each other extremely well.\u201d\u00a0In her own memoir, Simon confirmed that \u201cAnticipation\u201d arose from the time she was waiting for him to show up at her place for a date. She\u2019s never revealed the inspiration behind \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain\u201d (only to a TV executive who paid $50,000 to charity<\/a> to find out), but Yusuf, jokingly or not, thinks he knows. \u201cI never understood the endless hide-and-seek of finding out who \u2018You\u2019re So Vain\u2019 was about, bro! Naturally, I knew it was me!\u201d (Bonus info: We also learn from his book that Yusuf is not immune to using the term \u201cbro.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHe could have been nicknamed Splat Stevens.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tAs Cat Stevens, Yusuf came to embody the peace-loving, soul-searching stereotype of the Seventies troubadour. But as a child, he writes, he admits he \u201cgravitated toward any danger-filled subjects of a magnetic, action-driven nature involving as much violence, destruction, and death as possible,\u201d like horror films. After seeing the film version of Charles Dickens\u2019 A Tale of Two Cities<\/em>, set during the French Revolution, Yusuf recalls building miniature balsa-wood guillotines as a hobby. (They could have come in handy for hard-headed women \u2026 and men.) This odd pastime did also serve to bond him with music, though: He says he would listen to his sister\u2019s LP collection while making them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy didn\u2019t a soundtrack with all his songs appear until 2022, more than 50 years later? As Yusuf writes, he wasn\u2019t thrilled with the idea of a premature hits package, so he and his lawyers decided not to give the go-ahead for a companion album. (As far as lead actress Ruth Gordon singing \u201cSing Out\u201d and playing piano,\u00a0he writes, \u201cShe sounded dreadfully out of tune, but that was the way Hal wanted. So be it.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\tHe almost gave \u201cWild World\u201d away to another artist.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tAfter he finished Tea for the Tillerman<\/em>, the album that installed him in the soft-rock pantheon along with Simon, James Taylor, and a select few others, Yusuf was informed by label head Chris Blackwell that \u201cWild World\u201d was an obvious hit. But Yusuf says he felt the song was too \u201cverse and chorus,\u201d and thought someone else, namely reggae artist Jimmy Cliff, should record it instead, with Yusuf himself as producer. Cliff was up for it, but apparently nothing more came of the idea, and Yusuf\u2019s original version of the song wound up going top 20.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHis new songs in Harold and Maude<\/em>, the super-dark comedy cult classic, weren\u2019t finished.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tYusuf writes that he was approached by director Hal Ashby about contributing songs to his 1971 movie about the bond between a young guy obsessed with death and a quirky elderly woman who loved life. Yusuf says that in addition to hearing some of his songs in a rough edit of the film, he was asked to write new ones and dashed off demos of two semi-competed tunes \u2014 \u201cIf You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Be Shy\u201d \u2014 with the idea of finishing them later. Instead, Ashby loved the raw takes and used those instead.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJack Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\tHis mid-Seventies stage show could have given Spinal Tap a run for their set-design money.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tTo support his mathematically baffling concept album Numbers<\/em>, Stevens, then at the peak of his pop moment, went on the road<\/a> with an elaborate set that included what he calls a \u201cwhite sail backdrop,\u201d a \u201csparkly red-top piano and automatic pop-up stool.\u201d The concerts would open with Stevens popping out of four colored boxes. He hired magicians to open the shows (whose tricks, he says, included \u201csawing a luscious blonde lady in half\u201d). The final touring troupe included not just musicians, crew, and magicians but \u201ccountless doves and rabbits.\u201d And let\u2019s not forget about the tiger that would \u201cdramatically appear\u201d in a cage on the stage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHis conversion to Islam had a few bumps in the road.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tFollowing a near-drowning incident in Malibu in 1975, Yusuf began his road to a new faith, which, as he writes, involved adjustments for everyone. His name change to Yusuf Islam wasn\u2019t too difficult: \u201cThat would be easy for my family and English-speaking friends to pronounce,\u201d he writes. But his on-the-road rock & roll lifestyle took a hit: \u201cThere was no more room for \u2018Freelove & Goodbye\u2019 relationships, that sort of idea was not allowed in Islam.\u201d While making Back to Earth<\/em>, his last \u201cCat Stevens\u201d album, he would take prayer breaks, which was \u201cquite tough, especially if something was really cooking, musically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor that album cover, he also decided to announce his conversion by way of using a \u201cdecorative gold Arabic calligraphy\u201d for the credits. But, as he writes, the government of Malaysia was not thrilled with seeing \u201cAllah\u201d in calligraphy on the cover and asked for it to be removed. At his urging, Yusuf\u2019s record company slapped a sticker over that part of the cover and removed it from later pressings. Collector\u2019s item alert!<\/p>\n

\n\t\tElton John accidentally screwed him over at Live Aid.\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tAccording to Yusuf, he was invited to participate in the 1985 all-star charity concert, in London. By then. he had given away his musical instruments, hadn\u2019t performed live in years, and admits he was \u201cscared witless\u201d when he arrived at Wembley. Still, he prepped a new song, \u201cIn the End,\u201d that he would perform a cappella. As the day dragged on, he was told that John\u2019s set was running longer than anyone had expected, and Yusuf\u2019s song was cut from the lineup. As he writes, \u201cMy heart sank like a rock.\u201d When he arrived back home and watched the end of the broadcast thanks to a time delay, he saw his name listed in the closing credits.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe incident that Yusuf writes would be a \u201cblistering asteroid\u201d in his life started with an Islamic scholar who shared portions of Rushdie\u2019s book, <\/em>which the singer found to be \u201cunbelievably rude and offensive.\u201d Yusuf writes that he contacted the book\u2019s publisher, asking for it be pulled from circulation and also spoke with Islamic scholars, who told him that any retribution would not involve vigilantism.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tDuring a subsequent public talk about this conversation, he writes that an \u201cundercover journalist\u201d from a tabloid asked him if thought Rushdie should be put to death for his book. Yusuf writes that he addressed the question \u201cas openly as possible\u201d but \u201cforgot to mention the questionability of the dreaded fatwah.\u201d In the book, Yusuf feels a public apology he wrote was largely ignored and that the press went with its take that he was \u201can unrepentant supporter of the ayatollah and his fatwah.\u2026 Alas, I was not knowledgeable or eloquent enough to explain my stance on the matter as clearly at the time.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to his memoir, what he calls a \u201cshadow banning\u201d by some journalists simply pushed him into even greater devotion to his faith and studying \u201cthe status of fatwahs.\u201d But Yusuf still looks back at that incident as \u201can onslaught of misunderstanding and hatred like nothing I\u2019d ever experienced \u2014 before or since that day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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As music memoirs go, Yusuf\/Cat Stevens\u2019 Cat on the Road to Findout couldn\u2019t have been more aptly titled. Over the last nearly 60 years,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":46914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}