Song Exploder - Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Father and Son

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

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.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. The legendary singer-songwriter Yusuf Kat 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 Tiller Man 2, a reimagining of his hit 1970 album, Tea for the Tiller Man. In the song Father and Son, he sings a duet between the two-title-Tiller man. characters doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached this 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 Trubidor 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 Kat Stevens tells the story of how he created and then recreated father and son. My name is Yusuf, Kat Stevens. The story begins with songs and lyrics that weren't originally intended for an album. They grew out of a whole project which I was working on, which was a musical. I'd always wanted to write a musical because I lived in the West End and so therefore I was

surrounded by theatres, and it shaped the background, the soundtrack to my life. And so I was working with a man called Nigel Hawthorne, well-known actor, comedian, and a writer. And we were chosen as a subject for the musical, The Russian Revolution. Well, the name of the musical was Revolution. And there was this story going on in the countryside. This Russian family lived on a farm, you know, out there in the outskirts. Well, the son's name was Sasha. And the father's name was, it was dad, you know, his father.

And the son in this scene was wanting to join the revolution. But the father loves you, you know, he loves you. That's why he wants you to stay home. 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. know, find a girl, settle down. If you want, you can marry, look at me. I am old but I'm happy. 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. 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. And the other side was, I kind of like things the way they are for now. 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 then the words simply followed. The song itself wasn't difficult to perform as two 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. 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.

Now, Island Records was a really, you know, elite label with real leaning towards allowing artists to express themselves. Well, that was 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. 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, well, okay. You know, he said, we'll put you together with a producer and that's where I got introduced to Paul Samuel Smith.

I used to go and listen to him. He was the bass player with the yard birds. I used to dance to his music in the club and just down the road from where I lived in Oxford Street. So we work 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 Jackan. 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 T for the Tillamere. I was ordered to listen now there's a way. And I know I have to go away.

I know I have to go 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

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 of memories that moment where I sounded like my father.

But I was singing the son's part. Strange. But Dad was always supportive of me. He was much more relaxed with me and he bought my first guitar. 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, how Stevie is he doing all right? And David was saying, yeah, he's doing very well, Dad. In fact, Tea for the Tiller Man went on to go triple platinum. And in 2003, Rolling Stone included it in their list of the greatest albums of all time. 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 Tiller Man. what are we going to do? And he suggested, you know, this idea, well, don'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. It was nothing about doing an old kind of replicate 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. 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. 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 Son in the Trupador back in 1970.

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. I thought, I think this might work. Thank you. The first thing to do was actually to lay down the whole song.

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. You know all the times that I've cried, keeping all the things I knew inside, it's hard, but it's harder to... Anyway, when we finally got into the studio, there were lots of ideas,

and this was one of them, you know, to have the sun shipped in from 1970. There were other things, too. I'd actually been involved in putting on a kind of a musical again, I wrote this thing called Moonshadow. And because we did that, and because Father and Son was in it, I'd 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, and voices come in. I used for most of the album of the Tifa and Sula Man 2 were 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 riff I found was really, really lovely, and I found it kind of gave it a modern touch. 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, you know,

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. It's a choice, you know, whether or not you're going to add strings or not, but the songs certainly deserve strings. If they will write, 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. 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 a way. I have to go. Anyway, it just intrigues me. Even though you would expect that I would start to 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, but he's settled down, you know, sit down, just take it easy. Yeah, but, yeah, I want to get back to the sun.

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 that's never going to change. And now, here's the 2020 version of Father and Son by Yusuf Kat Stevens in its entirety. 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.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy to be calm when you found something work your time. Think a lot, think of everything you've got, you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not. How can I try to explain? to explain because when I do he turns away again it's always been the same same old story

or 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 and I know Or 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. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th.

It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Winerobe.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April. and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin, Clion, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In The Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now.

You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikesh.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Rishi-Kesh-Hirway, with editing help from Tini 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 all. for letting me try out their technology. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of creative, independent podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at SongExploder.

My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Pia.