Tell me about вЂњFather And SonвЂќ, specifically. So, today, you can hear my voice in the 1970s and you can hear my voice now, brought together with the magic of digital editing. We took my voice from 1970 for вЂњFather And SonвЂќ вЂ“ the voice of a male, 22 years old, singing in The Troubadour in Los Angeles вЂ“ and we use that voice. On вЂњFather And SonвЂќ, I found this beautiful melody which came out of the chord sequence. I call that my вЂњblack and whiteвЂќ arrangement: it goes back to black-and-white films and Casablanca and smoky bars. On вЂњWild WorldвЂќ, I just freaked out a little bit and did something totally different. And it was great! вЂњMiles From NowhereвЂќ, I think, is quite a classic and weвЂ™ve taken it to another level.

I stopped at a certain point, after a certain bar, and I ripped into a James Brown, funky approach. I talk about, вЂњRaise your mind up / look around / you can see them / theyвЂ™re looking down on a lonely asteroid / in a vacant void / dying, but not destroyed.вЂќ ThatвЂ™s to do with aliens looking down on us and going, вЂњWhat the heck is going on? What are these creatures doing? WhatвЂ™s their objective? What are they doing to the earth?вЂќ Anyway, I changed that radically. I couldnвЂ™t live with the lyrics of the original any more, and, in fact, I had another verse which I never recorded in 1970. What I did play around with was a song called вЂњLonger BoatsвЂќ.

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. While the younger Stevens вЂ“ who now records under the name Yusuf вЂ“ chose the first option, deeply questioning his fame and lifestyle before largely withdrawing from the world of pop music, at 71 he is settled: he lives in Dubai, where he continues to record music and coordinate a charitable initiative called Peace Train. Its best-known track, вЂњFather And SonвЂќ, takes the form of a conversation between a young man and his father, debating both sides of the age-old question as to whether a person should seek to change the world around them or try to carve out a place within it and live contentedly. Tillerman was a statement of intent from Stevens, as pertinent today as it was when it came out in 1970, with strong themes of environmentalism, generational divides and personal change and growth in a sense, some of the questions on the album pre-empted StevenвЂ™s own search for fulfilment and his subsequent high-profile conversion to Islam in 1977. Of all the politically and socially charged music to arise from the late 1960s, the album that has demonstrated perhaps the most longevity and continued appeal is Cat StevensвЂ™ Tea For The Tillerman.

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