transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. Thanks to Lisa for sponsoring Song Exploder. My annual spring cleaning always starts with good intentions, but this year, I actually followed through with something really important. I finally replaced my old mattress. It was a much needed change, honestly. I'd become so used to waking up with aches and pains every morning. I kind of forgot what a good night's sleep was supposed to feel like. Lisa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses that are tailored to how you sleep. So I found the right mattress for me by taking the Lisa Sleep Quiz on their website. Took less than two minutes to complete, and it'll tell you exactly the right mattress for you. So go to lisa.com for 20% off select mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code Song Exploder. It's exclusive for Song Exploder listeners. Again, it's leesa.com, and the promo code is Song Exploder for 20% off select mattresses, plus an extra $50 off. Support our show by letting them know that we sent you after your checkout. lisa.com with the promo code Song Exploder. This episode of Song Exploder is brought to you by booking.com, and I'm going to go on there right now because I've got a bunch of tour dates coming up between April and June. So I'm putting in the dates for the first city on my tour, Austin, Texas, and there are over 300 options. There's a huge variety from hotels to vacation rentals. I'm going to narrow it down to hotels and filter the results based on my budget and my tastes. Okay, there we go. There's still over 20 options for me to choose from. I'm going to look at the ones that are closest to the venue where I'm playing, and then I'm going to check out all the reviews and pick the one that feels most like me. Besides being close to the venue, I also want to be within walking distance of great food, preferably a great dessert. If I can find my perfect stay on booking.com, then anyone can. Find exactly what you're booking for at booking.com. Booking.yeah. Book today on the site or in the app. There's a Stephen Soderbergh movie called The Limey, and it stars the late Terence Stamp, the British actor. In the movie, there are moments where Terence Stamp's character drifts into memory and it goes into a flashback. And in those flashbacks to his younger self, they cut to footage of Terence Stamp from the 1967 film Poor Cow. There's no weird CGI de-aging or anything. You get to see his actual younger self. And I just love that. I was thinking about that recently, and it made me want to revisit this episode because Yusuf, Cat Stevens kind of did a musical version of that same thing when he re-recorded his song Father and Son. I think it's such a fascinating way to document the actual passing of time by interacting with your younger self. This episode came out originally in 2021, and it was a special episode of the podcast also because it was our 200th. Here it is. The legendary singer-songwriter, Yusuf, Cat Stevens, released his first album in 1967. He's a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his albums have sold millions. In 2020, he released Tea for the Tillerman², a reimagining of his hit 1970 album, Tea for the Tillerman. In the song Father & Son, he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached the song in kind of an astonishing way. He recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son, he used a live recording of himself from 1970, taken from a show he played at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. So the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart. In this episode, the 200th episode of Song Exploder, Yusuf Cat Stevens tells the story of how he created and then recreated Father & Son.

Speaker 2:
[04:19] My name is Yusuf Cat Stevens.

Speaker 1:
[04:23] The story begins with songs and lyrics that weren't originally intended for an album.

Speaker 2:
[04:27] They grew out of a whole project which I was working on, which was a musical. I'd always wanted to write a musical because I lived in the West End, and so therefore I was surrounded by theaters. It shaped the background of the soundtrack to my life. And so I was working with a man called Nigel Hawthorne, well-known actor, comedian and a writer. And we were chosen as a subject for the musical, The Russian Revolution. Well, the name of the musical was Revolution. And there was this story going on in the countryside. This Russian family lived on a farm, you know, out there in the outskirts. Well, the son's name was Sasha. And the father's name was, he was dad, you know, his father. And the son in this scene was wanting to join the Revolution. But the father loves you, you know, he loves you. That's why he wants you to stay home. I think as a writer, you know, you take on all sorts of characters and personalities. But when you're writing for a musical, of course you have to do that much more seriously. You must enter the character that you're writing about. But a lot of my songs were very, very autobiographical, I would say. And so there was always two sides of me. You know, there was the side which, you know, wanted to get out and do things. And the other side was kind of like things the way they are for now. So it was me talking to me in two different states of mind. And, you know, all the nuances of what a young man would be thinking when there's a revolution outside his front door, you know, it was pretty simple to put together. And the words simply followed. The song itself wasn't difficult to perform as two people, because I just simply shifted the octave up for the son and down for the father. And that kind of has its own impact on the emotion. At that point, we wanted to get some backing for the musical. So my manager, he had some connections with some pretty rich people. We met one of them. And when he heard this thing, he wasn't really interested, but he knew someone who was in the music business, and his name was Chris Blackwell. Chris Blackwell, of course, ran Island Records. Now, Island Records was a really, you know, elite label with a real leaning towards allowing artists to express themselves. Well, that was pretty great. So we played some of the songs. When we got to Father & Son, I think his jaw dropped. And he said, look, I want to talk some more about this. But then when we met next, he offered me, you know, a record contract. And that was really, you know, that took me right off course as far as my musical was concerned. So I said, yeah, well, okay. You know, he said, we'll put you together with the producer. And that's where I got introduced to Paul Samuel Smith. I used to go and listen to him. He was the bass player with the Yardbirds. I used to dance to his music in the club and just down the road from where I lived in Oxford Street. So, we worked through all the songs. And of course, one of them would have been Father & Son. It was. But I didn't like the way it turned out. So, it never ended up on the first album I recorded called Mona Bone Jackin. So, the second album was where we were really primed, I think, after the first. And the second one just seemed to work. So, that was Tea for the Tillerman. When I sang that song in Morgan Studios, which is where we finally got hold of the song, it was a moment where I was singing the son's part, where I could actually hear the timbre, the sound of my own father's voice. And that was very strange, because I was singing the son's part, but I got my father's voice up there. He was from Cyprus, so he had a very strong Mediterranean passionate side. You knew when he was angry, you know. And so I got that kind of anger out of me in the role of the son. And it was a very important moment in my recording of memories, that moment where I sounded like my father. But I was singing the son's part. Strange. But dad was always supportive of me. He was much more relaxed with me. And, you know, he bought my first guitar, you know. He didn't quite understand what the music business was all about. But he thought, well, if it makes a living, it's okay. And he used to always ask my brother, how's Stevie? Because, you know, he used to call me Stevie. He said, Stevie, is he doing all right? And David was like, yeah, he's doing very well, dad.

Speaker 1:
[10:29] In fact, Tea for the Tillerman went on to go triple platinum. And in 2003, Rolling Stone included it in their list of the greatest albums of all time.

Speaker 2:
[10:40] I didn't really intend to do another version, to be honest. But it was my son's idea when we were talking about what to do for the 50th anniversary of the release of Tea for the Tillerman. So what are we going to do? And he suggested this idea, well, then we'd record it again, because you're singing it kind of differently today. So, well, that's a good idea. It was nothing about doing an old kind of replicate of what I'd done before. I just wanted to live them again, as I do when I sing them live. And that was the idea. So that's how we got back to recording Father & Son again. My son has a lot of good ideas. I mean, it was again my son who suggested that maybe we could pick a voice from the 1970s or some of the old recordings, and that could be the son, and then I could be singing the father's part. I said, I don't think that's going to work. Using the original vocal was an idea, but it's kind of a repeat, and I didn't want to just do that. So we wanted to use something from that moment in time, but something new, something different that other people haven't heard. But you know what? We found this great recording of me singing Father & Son in The Troubadour back in 1970. I thought, I think this might work. The first thing to do was actually to lay down the whole song. So that's basically what we did. We laid down the whole song, including the part which will be taken over by the 1970s version. Anyway, when we finally got into the studio, there were lots of ideas, and this was one of them, you know, to have The Sun shipped in from 1970. There were other things too. I'd actually been involved in putting on a kind of a musical again. I wrote this thing called Moon Shadow, and because we did that, and because Father & Son was in it, I'd come up with all these new ideas. One of them was this counterpoint melody which I really loved, and it's played by a slide guitar. And voices come in. The band I used for most of the album of Tea for the Tillerman² were the guys that I play live with. And my songs, more recently, have turned towards the electric guitar much, much more. And so the other interesting little riff that I found was really, really lovely, and I found it kind of gave it a modern touch. When I go out live, people obviously want to hear the songs that they love, the songs that they grew up with. And I sing those songs, but I do need to try and make it more real for my own purposes and to meet the emotion of the song again. And so yes, I find new ways of expressing something of myself today in those songs. It's a choice, you know, whether or not you're going to add strings or not, but the song certainly deserves strings. One of the lyrics I find very intriguing, and which I love to think about, it says, there's a way I know I have to go away. That second away could be either a way, or it could be away. I have to go. Anyway, it just intrigues me. Even though you would expect that I would start to take the father's role, I certainly don't. I still wait for the son's part, and then I want to sing it much more than I want to sing the father's part. The father's part is great. You know, you go through, you swim through it, and it's fine. You know, he's kind of casual. He's a bit concerned, you know, but he's settled down, you know, sit down, just take it easy. Yeah. But, yeah, I want to get back to the son thing. There's a way. I know. I've got to go. So I always choose the son's dynamic, because there are still things to march about, there's still things to shout about, still things to sing about. I think that's the world that we live in that's never going to change.

Speaker 1:
[16:36] Coming up, you'll hear how all of this came together in the final song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full-length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Hrishikesh Hirway. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Winerobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the US starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzoukis, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Kleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple of songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website rishikesh.co or just go to songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live. Thanks. Song Exploder is sponsored by Distrokid. If you're an independent artist, Distrokid is a great way to get your music distributed. You get unlimited uploads, and you get to keep 100% of your royalties and earnings. There are more than a million artists, including me, who have used Distrokid to get their music into all the major streaming services, Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, everywhere. The Distrokid app is now available on iOS and Android. Go to the app or Play Store to download it now. And for 10% off your first year's membership, go to distrokid.com/vip/songexploder. Song Exploder is sponsored by Function. And a lot of what Function does is kind of like the health equivalent of what I'm asking artists to do here on the podcast. Look inside and tell me what's really going on. But instead of a song, it's your body. Function has over 160 lab tests. But in addition to that, you can also add on a full body scan to check on your health. I don't know if you've ever seen an MRI. Usually, when you do, it's only because something bad happened. For me, it was a torn ligament. But even then, I have to say, an MRI is kind of amazing. You can really see what's happening inside your body. So to be able to elect to get one in order to prevent something bad from happening is very, very cool. I'm definitely considering it because it means you can get ahead of what you can't feel yet. Function's advanced MRI scans screen for hundreds of conditions. You can add scans to your function membership and get $200 in credit. Join at functionhealth.com/songexploder. Thanks to Shopify for their support of Song Exploder. When I first started the podcast, it seemed like I had to figure out everything on my own. Booking interviews, making the artwork, making the website. And every day there was a new question that needed an answer. When you're starting something new, finding the right tool to help you out and simplify everything can be a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the e-commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. You can tackle so many important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more. It'll make your life easier and your business operations smoother. So start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start getting new sales. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/songexploder. Go to shopify.com/songexploder. Again, that's shopify.com/songexploder. And now, here's the 2020 version of Father & Son by Yusuf Cat Stevens in its entirety.

Speaker 2:
[23:01] I have to go away, I know, I have to go.

Speaker 1:
[24:50] For more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream both versions of Father & Son, and you can watch the stop motion animated video that was made for the new version of the song. This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Hrishikesh Hirway, with editing help from Teenie Leiberson and Casey Deal. Carlos Lerma makes illustrations for each episode, which you can find on the show's website and Instagram. Special thanks to Jessica Powell and the folks at Audio Shake for letting me try out their technology. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of creative independent podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at SongExploder. My name is Hrishikesh Hirway. Thanks for listening. PRX. Thanks so much to booking.com for sponsoring Song Exploder. I always check booking.com because they always have so many options. I sometimes travel with my dogs. I have two dogs, and despite the fact that they are rescues from the streets, they love hotels, so I have to hit the pet-friendly filter on the site. My wife needs a coffeemaker in the room and also within walking distance of the hotel. No matter who you are, find exactly what you are booking for on booking.com. Booking.yeah. Book today on the site or in the app.