SOD: Cat Stevens "Trouble"

Another Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame snubbery victim, Cat Stevens is as orignal as it gets. Though I believe his preferred nomenclature these days is, Yusuf Islam. Whatever you want to call him, or he want's to call himself, I call his music something to behold. I won't claim to know any of his more recent work, but I will stand behind his earlier creations. Mona Bone Jakon, released in July of 1970, is and amazing piece of work. The album is named after the nickname he gave his penis, and I can't say much to that besides, "uh, weird man." But the music is the direct creation of a year long stint in bed, as his doctors demanded he stay there to recover from a serious bout of tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. During that year, he created about 40 new songs that would birth three new albums in a 15 month period. Mona Bone Jakon was the first and my favorite, followed by Tea for the Tillerman, another amazing album with his most well known songs, and finally Teaser and the Firecat.

When Cat Stevens recovered, he re-entered the music scene with a brand new sound. He had transitioned from the pop/folk rock sound of his day, to the newly created and coined "singer-songwriter" genre. Most of the songs were significantly darker in tone, and much of his lyrics tended to deal with death, loss, and sadness. The musical arrangements were very stripped down, with bass, acoustic guitars, keyboard and minimal drums. On one of the livelier tracks, "Katmandu", the esteemed Peter Gabriel who was about 20 at the time, plays flute! Go figure...

"Trouble" starts as a softer, pleading song, but grows in intensity throughout, like many Cat Stevens pieces. He sings of trouble as a tangible entity, that he attempts to ward off. It is a warning to death to keep away, and also an admission of how life has broken him down, and there's not much left. Sad, but beautiful, it's a song that often reminds me of my vulnerability. Not to anything in particular, but simply that it exists. An acknowledgement that we're all down at some point, staring our own stripped down truths in the face. How you deal with that is up to you. My father said that in his youth, he and his friends would often listen to this song after a long night of doing whatever it is they did. They'd all be sitting around when "the party" was over, each in some state of reflection, and someone would put this vinyl on the player. The imagery of that scene fits this song. It sounds like the end. Be it of the night, or something far more permanent.