“The Wind” by Cat Stevens
Singalong 020: "Good" can be relative or empirical
“I listen to the wind / To the wind of my soul”
"The Wind" is the first track from "Teaser and the Firecat". This was one of the records bumping around in my childhood, along with "Mona Bone Jakon" and "Tea for the Tillerman". My dad listened to mariachi music and Jim Croce, my mom had the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens. There was a lot more than that of course, and we all listened to all of it. But let's talk about Cat.
Steven Demetre Georgiou. The First Cut is the Deepest. Or the first Cat, as it were. I don't know too many dudes named Cat, though I do know a few cats named Steven. But enough about me... This guy is as unique as his music. They call sounds like his a "signature sound", totally of his time and also timeless. Cat is legendary. Legendary but humble. You can describe him on the surface, but you'll never get through the layers.
“Where I'll end up / Well I think only God really knows”
He's super restless, you see. He squirmed out of his first record contract by demanding more and more elaborate and expensive orchestrations, then he created the “legendary” work from 1970-73, then he spent the rest of the 70's forging even further forward: he moved to Brazil, made prog rock and synth pop (have you heard any of those cuts?). Then he nearly drowned off the Malibu coast, and then he converted to Islam. He was given a copy of the Quran by his brother David Gordon, who incidentally had converted to Judaism. They had all grown up Greek Orthodox.
It's not reality TV material, but I'd totally listen to the podcast. (All of the preceeding paragraph is from Wikipedia by the way, go give it a skim if you're curious.)
“I've sat upon the setting sun / But never, never, never, never / I never wanted water once”
To me, it's the sound of a man finding his way, or showing you how to find yours. He happens to sound great, and I believe it’s because he sounds honest. Honest and earnest. He's not trying to sound fancy, just true. It sounds fancy enough, of course, there are some stellar musicians in his orbit. This music is Good. And not just “good” but Good For You. At the core I've always associated Cat Stevens with eating your vegetables.
As in, why can't you just be a good boy like Cat?
My mom used to go off about certain music "rotting" my "brain". Like when I started listening to Loverboy, John Cougar and Joan Jett, I may as well have been gorging myself on candy bars. And maybe I was. I also remember mom throwing a tantrum when she would come home to find my sister and I watching the Dukes of Hazzard. She had very clear ideas about what “Bad” entertainment was. Meanwhile “Good” was (and is) a mysterious and remote thing.
It was hard for me to get a read on what "Good" actually meant, since I found it all fascinating and I just wanted to learn everything I could about the world by consuming all the culture I could, pop and otherwise. I mean, was it really all crap? How could it be "bad" if I was learning something, having fun and getting surprised? The former analog world seems so quaint now, all these decades after "Avatar" and 9/11. I feel like I’m trying to colorize the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz.
“I listen to my words but they fall far below / I let my music take me where my heart wants to go”
Good. Cat Stevens had to have had his own struggles with striving to be "good". On a good day I like to think we'd all like to be good if we could, but I know that's not true. Not everyone is concerned with goodness. Some will say that morality is a luxury. They’ll say that "good" flies right out the window when your survival is on the line, or even just your credibility. I challenge anyone here to even define what "good" actually is. "Good" can be relative or empirical, and that’s ok.
“I've swam upon the devil's lake / But never, never, never, never / I'll never make the same mistake / No never, never, never”
At a recent haircut, my stylist spoke about how his S.O. was very very very anti-Donald Trump. "How about you?" I asked, and he goes: "Honey I'm a hairstylist. The only thing I am is anti-aging."
I’ll sing to that.
Here’s me attempting to play “The Wind”: