The story behind Cat Stevens "Father and son"

There is little doubt among his many fans that Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” is one of his most beloved songs. It tells the timeless story of a father who does not understand his son’s desire to find his own way in life and his son’s inability to explain to his father why it should be this way. Stevens sang both parts, singing the melodic line in lower notes when assuming the role of father and an octave higher when singing the role of son. At the end, he sings both parts simultaneously, first with the father in the foreground and the son in the background, followed by a role reversal. But what inspired Stevens (now known as Yusuf Isalm, after his Muslim conversion) to write the song? Was it based on your relationship with your own father, someone else, and your father, or was it a complete fiction?

It certainly wasn’t about Stevens and his own father. Shortly after the song was released, he told an interviewer: “I never really understood my father, but he always let me do what I wanted, he let me go. ‘Father And Son’ is for those people who can’t. break loose. “And in an interview about the Chris Isaak TimeIn 2009, Stevens recounted about their relationship: “He ran a restaurant and I was a pop star, so I wasn’t following the path he charted. But we certainly didn’t have any antagonism between us. I loved him and he loved me.”

Actually, the song started out as fiction. Written during his early successes in England before becoming known in the United States, Stevens originally composed “Father and Son” for a musical project with actor Nigel Hawthorne called Revolusia. It was supposed to be about a boy who wanted to join the Russian revolution against his father’s wish. However, the project fell by the wayside due to Steven’s health. He was given more than a year of recovery after contracting tuberculosis and suffering a collapsed lung. However, the song remained in Steven’s repertoire and ended on his famous 1970 release “Tea for the Tillerman”.

So how does Stevens view the song after releasing it? In his own words, “Some people think I was taking the son’s side. But how could I have sung the father’s side if I couldn’t have understood it too? I was listening to that song recently and I heard a line and realized who was the father of the father of the father of the father of the father of the father of the father of the father speaking “.