198. Cat Stevens aka. Steven Demetre Georgiou aka. Yusuf Islam - Tea For The Tillerman (1970)


















Track Listing

1. Where Do The Children Play
2. Hard Headed Woman
3. Wild World
4. Sad Lisa
5. Miles From Nowhere
6. But I Might Die Tonight
7. Longer Boats
8. Into White
9. On The Road To Find Out
10. Father And Son
11. Tea For The Tillerman

Review

The man with many names brings us what is a pretty spectacular album. The then Cat Stevens created a collection of supremely catchy songs which are actually pretty well written, not only at a lyrical level but at a compositional level as well. The orchestrations are superb, the piano playing is inspired even if not that complex and Stevens' soft voice makes it a very pleasant album to listen to on top of all that.

If Cat Stevens achieves one thing with this album is a perfect marriage of what can be called "light music" with something else. This album can be listened to at a variety of levels and there are very few people of all different social and musical strata who would not appreciate this.

Yes, it is nice, is is easy to listen to but it is also perfectly produced and crafted and you can't help but sing along through most of the album. And then there is a flipside here, songs that you can't sing along are supremely sad, Sad Lisa is one of those, but Cat Stevens voice ends up being so empathetic that there is always a glimmer of hope in his songs.

It is a beautiful album with a cross-over appeal that is hard to beat, and this album is the perfect Cat Stevens product. Not a track is less than exceptional. Get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Where Do The Children Play ?
2. Tea For The Tillerman
3. Sad Lisa
4. Hard Headed Woman

Final Grade

10/10


Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Four of the songs ("Where Do the Children Play?", "On the Road to Find Out", "Tea for the Tillerman" and "Miles from Nowhere") were featured in Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins' black comedy Harold and Maude (1971), and the title track is used by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for the closing credits of Extras. The fourth episode of the second season of the show features a cover of "Tea for the Tillerman" performed by Chris Martin of Coldplay.

He drew the album cover himself. Bem que podia ter limpo as mãozinhas à parede, oh caralho...


Where do The Children Play? pretty amazing live version: