Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 01.10.1971
People live, weather crises, and search for meaning. Sometimes a particularly traumatic experience changes the course of a person's life completely.
At 19, Cat Stevens contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to a hospital in West Sussex. After several months in hospital, during which he came close to death, he finally recovered. Yet the man who left the hospital was no longer the same person. This was a Cat Stevens searching for meaning in his life. He began studying meditation, yoga, and metaphysics.
He also read about other religions and became a vegetarian.
Stevens recalled that moving from the entertainment world to a hospital, where he received daily injections and saw people around him dying, changed his perspective on life. As a young man, he had pursued wealth and success. After surviving, however, he embarked on his most important journey: the search for meaning.
He had become a different person, and suddenly the songs began pouring out of him. In a short space of time, he wrote a wealth of new material, moved away from the orchestral style of his first two albums, and parted ways with producer Mike Hurst.
His new direction was personal, reflective folk music about the meaning of life, faith, and a positive, sometimes naive, cosmic optimism.
Stevens was born Steven Demetre Georgiou to a Greek Cypriot father and a Swedish mother. His parents ran a restaurant where the whole family worked, and divorced when he was eight. From an early age, the young Stevens was interested in music and painting, and taught himself to play the piano.
When he was 15, his father bought him a guitar. He began playing songs by "The Beatles", along with songs he wrote himself.
After returning to London from a brief stay in Sweden with his mother, he lost interest in his studies and focused on music and art. He enrolled in an illustration course and later painted some of his own album covers, including "Teaser and the Firecat", his fifth studio album, released on October 1, 1971.
After recording several demos, including "The First Cut Is the Deepest", he signed a recording contract and performed in coffeehouses and clubs. Feeling that his birth name was not particularly catchy, and inspired by a girlfriend's remark about his catlike eyes, he chose the stage name Cat Stevens.
Having fallen ill and nearly died of tuberculosis, Stevens found a renewed sense of purpose. He brought in producer and former "The Yardbirds" bassist Paul Samwell-Smith. On his recommendation, Stevens began working with guitarist Alun Davies, whose distinctive guitar picking added a special dimension to his post-illness songs.
Between 1970 and 1973, some of Stevens' songs appeared in film and television soundtracks. His deeply personal albums also brought fruitful collaborations with Peter Gabriel on "Mona Bone Jakon", and with Rick Wakeman, who joined progressive rock band "Yes" in 1971 and plays piano on "Teaser and the Firecat" in "Morning Has Broken".
"Teaser and the Firecat" is also the title of a children's book Stevens wrote and illustrated, published in 1972. It tells the story of two characters, Teaser and Firecat, who try to return the moon to the sky after it falls. There is no conceptual connection between the book and the album beyond their title and the cover, which Stevens himself created.
Here, Stevens creates a concise, focused album, bringing together quiet, delicate ballads and lively uptempo songs. Occasionally, he returns to the landscapes of his childhood through exotic Greek-flavored pieces such as "Rubylove".
Stevens wrote all the songs on "Teaser and the Firecat" except "Morning Has Broken", which opens with beautiful piano playing. It is a Christian hymn first published in 1931, with words by English author Eleanor Farjeon set to a traditional Scottish melody.
On the opening track, "The Wind", Stevens explores spirituality and destiny, listening to the wind of his soul to find his direction. That spiritual thread continues in "Changes IV", where he encourages us to keep finding ways to grow and to embrace change.
In "If I Laugh", Stevens sings about life's sliding doors: what might have happened if...
Two of the album's most uplifting songs are "Moonshadow", about finding hope in whatever circumstances we face, and "Peace Train", a song that feels like a hippie anthem without quite realizing it. These are the years of the Vietnam War, and the peace train is nowhere on the horizon. In Cat Stevens' world, however, things fall into place a little differently.
In 1975, in Malibu, Stevens went swimming and was swept away, unable to return to shore. According to his account, just before his strength gave out, he appealed to God to save him, promising to devote his life to Him. At that moment, a wave came up behind him and pushed him back toward the shore. Stevens survived.
After that escape, Stevens began reading the Quran. He converted to Islam in 1977 and changed his name to Yusuf Islam in 1978.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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