Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Father and Son

Introduction

0:00You'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 Rishikesh Hirwe.

0:10I'm going to be on tour for the next few weeks, and all the dates are at songexploder.net slash live. I'm going to be playing songs from my new album, In the Last Hour of Light, with a full band, and I'm going to be talking about the making of my album with a special guest moderator in each city. I get to be the interviewee instead of the interviewer. So I'm going to be joined by Jason Manzoukas, Samin Nosrat, Allison Russell, Joshua Molina, Ken Jennings and John Roderick, Min Jin Lee, and Adam Scott. It's a really personal album, and I hope you can make it out to one of the shows.

0:41You can get tickets and more info at songexploder.net slash live.

0:48Thanks to Lisa for sponsoring Song Exploder. My annual spring cleaning always starts with good intentions, but this year I actually followed through with something really important. I finally replaced my old mattress. It was a much-needed change, honestly. I'd become so used to waking up with aches and pains every morning. I kind of forgot what a good night's sleep was supposed to feel like. Lisa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses that are tailored to how you sleep. So I found the right mattress for me by taking the Lisa Sleep Quiz on their website. It took less than two minutes to complete, and it'll tell you exactly the right mattress for you.

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The Limey Movie

2:33There's a Steven Soderbergh movie called The Limey, and it stars the late Terrence Stamp, the British actor. And in the movie, there are moments where Terrence Stamp's character drifts into memory, and it goes into a flashback. And in those flashbacks to his younger self, they cut to footage of Terrence Stamp from the 1967 film Poor Cow. There's no weird CGI de-aging or anything. You get to see his actual younger self. And I just love that. I was thinking about that recently, and it made me want to revisit this episode,

3:06because Yusuf Kat Stevens kind of did a musical version of that same thing when he re-recorded his song, Father and Son. I think it's such a fascinating way to document the actual passing of time, by interacting with your younger self. This episode came out originally in 2021, and it was a special episode of the podcast also, because it was our 200th. Here it is.

Yusuf Kat Stevens

3:34The 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 Tillerman 2, a reimagining of his hit 1970 album, Tea for the Tillerman. In the song Father and Son, he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached the 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,

4:09taken 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 Kat Stevens tells the story of how he created, and then recreated, Father and Son. Take your time, think a lot Think of everything you've got You will still be here tomorrow But your dreams may not My name is Yusuf Kat Stevens

4:45The 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, a well-known actor, comedian, and a writer. And we were chosen, as a subject for the musical, the Russian Revolution.

5:18Well, 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 Dad, you know, his father. And the son, in this scene, was wanting to join the revolution.

5:48But 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 Find a girl, settle down If you want, you can marry Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy

6:20I 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 like, I kind of like things the way they are, for now.

6:52So 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 the words simply followed. The song itself wasn't difficult to perform as two people, you know, 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. How can I try to explain

7:24When I do, he turns away again It's always been the same Same old story 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.

7:57Now, Island Records was a really, you know, elite label with a 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, okay.

8:28You 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 Yardbirds. So I used to dance to his music in the club and just down the road from where I lived in Oxford Street. So we worked 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 Jacken.

8:59So 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 Tea for the Tillerman. 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 I know I have to go When I sang that song in Morgan Studios,

9:36which 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 He was from Cyprus so he had a very strong Mediterranean passionate side You knew when he was angry, you know And so I got that kind of anger out of me in the role of the son and it was a very important moment

10:07in my recording of memories that moment where I sounded like my father but I was singing the son's part Strange All the times that I've cried Keeping all the things I knew inside It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it But Dad was always supportive of me He was much more relaxed with me And, you know, he bought my first guitar, you know He didn't quite understand what the music business was all about

10:38But he thought, well, if it makes a living Hmm, 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, Stevie, is he doing all right? And David would say, yeah, he's doing very well, Dad In fact, Tea for the Tillerman 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

11:09for the 50th anniversary of the release of Tea for the Tillerman So what are we going to do? And he suggested, you know, this idea Why don't we 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

11:40I 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 said, 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, you know, haven't heard But you know what? We found this great recording of me singing

12:13Father and Son in the troubadour 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

12:45So that's basically what we did We laid down the whole song including the part which will be taken over by the 1970s version Anyway, when we finally got into the studio

13:17there 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

14:00The band I used for most of the album of Tifa the Suleiman 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 that I found was really, really lovely

14:31and 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 but I do need to try and make it more real for my own purposes and to meet the emotion of the song again

15:03and 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 One of the lyrics I find very intriguing

15:48and 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 away 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

16:20The 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, settle down You know, sit down Just take it easy Yeah, but Yeah, I want to get back to the son 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 There's still things to sing about I think that's the world that we live in that's never going to change Coming up, you'll hear how all of this came together

Mixtape Game

17:01in the final song Song Exploder is sponsored by the game Mixtape And to learn more I talked to one of the creators My name is Johnny Galvatron I'm the writer and director of Mixtape It's about three teenagers on their last day of high school going to their final party together listening to the greatest mixtape of all time And where did the idea for this game originally come from? Just wanting to make a game based around That's Good by Devo which is the greatest song of all time There's just something alive in that song that speaks to me

17:32And it's very much a game about being a music lover and someone who appreciates music and knows where to place it in their life And then game-wise there are different kinds of mechanics There's different kinds of music There's different kind of art style So the game as a whole should be viewed as a mixtape and kind of this artistry of arrangement And so how is the game itself like a mixtape? So usually in a video game you will have a standard set of mechanics which might be fighting but in a mixtape

18:03there's different people saying different things with different vibes and you want each song to be given its own experience its own life and you want to use the medium that's what's kind of important about making video games you want to use the medium to show what the music is showing We have this song BJ Thomas most of all where a friend gets betrayed and she floats back through town and just kind of knocks everything out of her way as she floats through town and you control her and like what a beautiful way to kind of use that song and to use a mechanic and input to show

18:34the betrayal and the despondency and the sadness and when you can get all those things mixed together and hit those crescendos where you hit between video game music narrative that's the goal that's the diamond that you aim for I think you would really dig it Mixtape comes out May 7th on console and PC Check it out at mixtape.game

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19:58and my general health I've been traveling these days a lot for my album release shows and I remember that someone once said to me part of the job of a touring musician is to make sure that you don't get sick I do have a tendency to get sick when I travel a lot and the Function tests that I took revealed that I was deficient in vitamin D and magnesium So I made changes to my diet and my vitamin intake because it's one thing to say oh I'm trying to be healthier and another thing to actually have the information that lets you

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Father and Son Song

20:57here's the 2020 version of Father and Son by Yusuf Kat Stevens in its entirety

21:19It'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

21:50Find 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've found Something going on But take your time

22:20Think a lot Think of everything You've got For you will still be here tomorrow But your dreams may not Oh how can I try To explain Cause when I do He turns away Again It's always Been the same Same old story From the moment

22:52I could talk I was ordered To listen Now there's a way And I know That I have to go Away I know I have to go American

23:23I know And I know I have to go I have to go I have to go To issue You've got to do It's not time to make a change Just sit down, take it slowly You're still young, that's your fault There's so much you have to go through

23:55Find a girl, settle down If you want, you can marry Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy You know all the times that I've cried Keeping all the things I knew inside It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it If they were right, I'd agree

24:27But 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 For more, 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

24:59that was made for the new version of the song This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Rishikesh Hirwe With editing help from Teenie 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 Audioshake 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

25:31If 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 Rishikesh Hirwe Thanks for listening I want to tell you about another Radiotopia show called Proxy It's hosted by Yohei Shah

26:02Who you might know from her time hosting Invisibilia from NPR On Proxy, Yohei tackles your niche emotional conundrums Maybe you have a question that is impossible to get answers for Because no one in your life can relate Or the person you wish you could talk to about it Isn't in your life anymore So Yohei scours the world for the perfect stranger for you to talk to Someone who's been in the same situation or has relevant experience And can hopefully provide the insight that you're looking for It's emotional investigative journalism at your service Listen to Proxy with Yohei Shah wherever you get your podcasts