It’s a staple of the pub quiz- guess the song from the
opening lines. Sometimes it can be less easy than you think. ‘I never thought
it would happen, with me and the girl from Clapham’. That’s the opening line of
a Squeeze song that has two unique selling points; it batters you relentlessly
with rhyming phrases (‘I got a job with Stanley, he said I’d come in handy’)
and it never repeats a line, forcing you to pay attention as you listen to the
tale of young love it spins. The title of the song is in the last line; ‘and so
it’s my assumption, I’m really up the junction’.
We all have our favourites: ‘watching the people get lairy,
is not very pretty I tell thee’, ‘all your dreams are made, when your chained
to the mirror and the razor blade’. I want to talk about a song that starts
with a classic opening line, one that sets up the story, slips in a cinematic
reference or two and keeps up the high standard it sets itself all the way
through. The song is ‘Year of the Cat’ by Al Stewart. It is the title track of
an album from 1976, of which more later, which blends poetry and musical
excellence to create a masterpiece. Here are the opening lines:
‘on a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they
turn back time,
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre,
contemplating a crime’.
By the time you hear those words you are already over a
minute into the song (this is the 1970’s, when six minutes and forty seconds is
par for the course for an album track). It starts with an upbeat piano riff to
which acoustic guitar and drums are smoothly added, before Stewart's fluid
vocals begin to tell the story. Peter Lorre of course was a supporting actor in more than one Bogart movie, which sets the mood for what is unfolding.
I rate the next lines as among the greatest lyrics ever
written:
‘she comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a
watercolour in the rain’
If the opening lines establish the listener as the hero of
the scenario (again, this is the 1970’s, so it’s about a hero) the next lines
introduce the female lead, mysterious, sensual and seductive. You the listener
are in deep waters now, abroad in a foreign place, never quite specified but
somehow Mediterranean, ‘by the blue-tiled walls near the market stalls, there’s
a hidden door she leads you to’. The two protagonists go through the door and it
is left to the imagination what occurs. But if the song doesn’t go into
details, the music provides all you need to know.
The middle section of
the song is to my mind simply perfect. It starts with some subtle Spanish Guitar foreplay,
leading into an urgent lead guitar solo that reaches a peak and morphs almost unnoticed
into a saxophone break, an extended ecstasy of sound that gradually subsides
via soaring strings to a repeat of the opening piano. How was it for you
darling?
As the lyrics resume the consequences show themselves;
Well morning comes and you’re still with her, and the bus
and the tourists are gone/and you’ve thrown away your choice, and lost your
ticket, so you have to stay on’, but there is no need for regret, because ‘the
drumbeat strains of the night remain in the rythm of the new-born day’.
At this point the listener understands that they have had a
glimpse of a classic holiday romance, the kind of escape from normal life that
is too wonderful to last ‘you know sometime you’re bound to leave her’ but that
was completely worth falling into and will be remembered and cherished
lifelong. The saxophone resumes as a passionate reminder of what has occurred
as the song plays out.
Year of the Cat, the song and the album, are exemplars of
the kind of moment that often occurs all too rarely; when an artist experiences
a congruence between their creative powers, the right musicians to bring that
creativity to fruition and a receptive audience. It also serves as a reminder
that the standard narrative of the middle years of that decade being a low
point between the high point of ‘71/72 and the outburst of rage and innovation
that was triggered by punk rock can be a carelessly lazy description of what
was going on. 1975 and 1976 had their share of duds, but they also benefited
from a gloriously eclectic set of charts that saw artists like Dolly Parton and
Gordon Lightfoot rub shoulders with Cockney Rebel, ELO and reggae acts such as
Susan Cadogan and of course Bob Marley.
The B side of Year of the Cat, the vinyl single, was also
from the album; Broadway Hotel. In those days, if you bought the single, you
would often go on to buy the album as well. So my vinyl copy is something of an
artefact in its own right.
So now you've read the review, go ahead and listen to the song. Remember to don your linen suit or silk dress first to get into character.....
I love the way you bring the story in the song alive in a way I never usually hear songs...I'm all about the melody ...but you appreciate both and therefore bring another dimension, for me anyway ....like the way you also relate the type of music to the kind of society we were living in then. write some more about the kinds of music and societal change ...please 😊
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