This
article by Roy Carr appeared in two different Hit Parade magazines
issues, July 1972 and the Spring 1973 issue. As you may have noticed in previous articles
on Majicat, many articles seem to be very similar. This is one particular incidence, when
these two Hit Parade issues published the exact same article under two differnt names.
CAT STEVENS:
- In An Atmosphere of Motion
- Hit Parade July 1972
OR
- Pedestals
- Hit Parade Yearbook
- Spring 1973
Written by ROY
CARR
Putting an artist on a
pedestal has always been a common practice and the worship of the graven star image a much
exploited cult. Once it was the magnified animated reflection on the silver screen,
today it is the contemporary singer-songwriter whose every word and gesture is taken as
gospel by those seeking some kind of substitute spiritual fulfillment. Such is the frailty
of the human ego that many of those directly subjected to this phenomena allow their
life-style to be moulded beyond recognition by the lip-service bestowed upon them.
Not Cat Stevens. For he
states with down-to-death directness "I find that it’s all really nothing more
than a great joke. "As far as anything is concerned, be it politics, generals.
. .whatever, it’s all a great big game and you play it the best that you can.
That’s as far as it goes."
He stresses: "The
important thing is not to take anything seriously. Like the general who thinks that he is
the ‘Father of the Army’ has got to be crazy, because most of them hate his guts
and you’ve really got to look at it with a sense of humor.
However, Stevens admits
that when he doesn’t think along this line, it brings him down. "My most
depressing time is when I start getting serious with myself," he states with complete
honesty. "I find that it comes through in my music. I’ll get all wound up in a
particular line and I’ll start thinking about it while I’m putting it down on
tape. Then when I listen to it a couple of days later, I say, ‘Forget it. . .
that’s not what I’m thinking about, that’s hitting stone! You go as far
down as you can possibly go and then inevitably you hit stone."
Despite his success, which
is still a source of amazement to him, Cat Stevens has remained level-headed. The paradox
is that he is almost the antithesis of his vocation. This trait is revealed in- the
simplicity of his domestic life, for Stevens has just bought himself a new home. It’s
not the expected sprawling multi-roomed
mansion complete with a
swimming pool hidden away in the green and pleasant heart of the English countryside.
It’s a converted split-level terraced dwelling, a mere stall holder’s cry from
the busy North End Road street market down at Walham Green, London. Outside, kids kick a
football at the silent crocodile of parked cars — a queue of old ladies with bursting
shopping bags form outside the brightly lit Top Rank Bingo Palace—the aroma of
freshly baked bread that emits from the corner shop tempers the chillness of the air.
When I arrived at Chateau
Cat, a gang of workmen were busy bashing, plastering and hammering everything in sight
with a maximum of noise. Surely this was not a conducive atmosphere for a prolific
songwriter, I commented when I initially came across Stevens seated cross-legged on the
floor amongst a heap of books, paints and guitar cases busily cooking scrambled eggs and
burning toast on a small electric ring plonked, for the time being, in the stone fireplace
on the first floor.
"Ahhhh well, being a
city lad," Steve chortled in mock tones, as he looked up from his culinary duties,
"I enjoy living in London. . . in actual fact, I like all cities. Apart from London,
the only other city that I’d like to live in though is Toronto. Now that’s a
really fantastic place.
"I would never live in
New York," he commented, while continuing his whistle-stop appraisal of the capitals
of the world. The reason for this statement was "New York finally eats yàu
up.". No.matter how long a stretch you have there, you always get eaten up. Strange
as it may seem, this urban atmosphere of almost perpetual motion in which Stevens exists,
nay positively thrives in, acts as a stimulus fQr his numerous creative outlets. "I
like to be as close to the city as possible," says Stevens, "having all these
workmen around me is creating a constant stream of movement. . . only in that way is my
mind free to move.
"For me, it’s
great to write in a car.
"It’s great,
‘cause if I’m being driven somewhere in a taxi, I find that my mind is being
constantly taken over by new sights. Therefore I haven’t got the time to concentrate
on any one thing and get lost in it, so I have to think and consequently my ideas are
constantly changing. "A car is a great place to write in," he concluded. Totally
aware that the contents of his music reflects the inverse of his turbulent environment,
Stevens who until recently lived above his parents restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue,
London feels that subconsciously it’s his natural reaction against this background of
continual noise.
"I’ve had lorries
outside my window for the last ten years," he recalls. "I guess it’s that
which I am combating." However, Stevens still finds time to allow for everyday
idiosyncrasies, his most recent being his beard, which he is hurriedly regrowing after
having
taken razor firmly in hand
and succumbed to the overwhelming compulsion to see what lay underneath. "Before I
shaved it off, I found that my beard was almost ruling me," confessed the demon
barber. "I was almost frightened to see what was underneath, if got so much that I
thought I’ve got to beat it."
"Well I eventually did
it," he continued, "and I felt so clean, it was the first time that I have
actually felt rain on my chin for I don’t know how many years. . . it was fantastic.
But then I realized I didn’t want it like that so I’ve started to regrow it
again. You find that you can conceal things, not internally, but when you have an open jaw
you automatically find that you conceal things within yourself. . . mainly in your head.
"Now normally, you’d take it inside of yourself when reacting to something, with
a beard you can react quite openly and as you have a covering it doesn’t affect it
too much. . . it’s not so internal, it’s an outgoing reaction."
Success has turned more
heads than a good looking woman, but again Cat Stevens is adamant in his determination to
retain a sense of priorities and avoid being sucked up by the destructive superstar
syndrome. Even the immediacy of his Stateside acclaim— being one of the few artists
to actually show a profit on an initial expeditionary trip to the New
World—hasn’t clouded his personal credo.
"The trouble is, that
many artists become performing puppets, but they don’t know it. They still think they
are in control which can be very dangerous because they’ll suddenly blow up and they
won’t know why.
"The thing I found is
trying to get as much control over my life as possible, It’s lust a question of you
working and struggling for that moment when you’re on top so that you can then do
what you want. It doesn’t matter what thing you’re into, it’s just that
you’re constantly working to reach that peak. "There are those people who give
up at a certain point and that’s something I haven’t done yet. In fact I
don’t feel that I’m going to do it for a long time because I have so much energy
to give myself that actually works. I don’t know what it is," then with a hearty
laugh suggests, "probably it’s lust sexual frustration.
Conscious of his audience,
Stevens is forever striving to present a good
concert in the best
possible surroundings. To this end, he still avoids performing in those vast American
stadiums, where the name of the game is: See How Many People We Can Pull In.
"I don’t go in
for all that," says Stevens taking a stand. "They’re only in it for the
bread, it’s definitely a bread thing. The only thing is that you do get heard by a
lot more people, but then you don’t really because you sacrifice the quality of your
performance. They only see the event, that’s all. Now that’s what I call a drag.
That’s not what it’s about.
"Records are private
things, personal things and it doesn’t always mean the same.thing to everyone who is
listening, yet it has to be heard.
"You see, in America a
large proportion of the audience comes for the event instead of the artist. Elton John got
caught up in this trap and he didn’t know it at the time.
"I guess that’s
what festivals were really all about. It didn’t matter who was on, it was a nice
summer and you’d go along to dig it because you knew other people would be there.
"Honestly, I
didn’t expect things to happen in the States like they did. But when I got there
everything just felt right. Though I was angry at the time that ‘Mona Bone
Jakon’ didn’t get off the ground, but then it didn’t get off here or
anywhere for that matter except in France.
"I was really upset
about that, so when I went over I was really determined to make it on my first trip. I
wasn’t into like doing three trips and like they say earn money gradually. I earned
money on the first tour, even though it was only $250 it was enough to come out and say,
‘I’ve done it.’ You don’t have to do loads of tours and like you
don’t have to go through all that hassle. Not if you really mean what you say.
Stevens yet again admits as
an afterthought that he still is very much surprised by the reaction. "And
that’s why I don’t want to get too hung-up on it, and let’s face it so many
people do."
With astute know how
Stevens is instigating his own demand by only doing four week Stateside tours of selected
dates at any one time. "I don’t want to play before 40,000 people in a football
stadium, because that’s it. . .what’s the next thing?
"The only alternative
then is to do jingles."
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