Ten Favorite Cats and Dogs Songs: Year of the Cat (#1)

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Here's the final saucer of milk to be put out for my series of songs that have "cat" or "dog" in the title. Maybe I'll move on to exotic animals next...."Hyena" by R.E.M., anyone? Meanwhile, here's my favorite "standard pet" song. #1: Year of the Cat - Al Stewart I don't own every Al Stewart album, but I did drive to St. Louis to see him in concert three years ago. And, man, was it worth it. Just him and another guitarist, rolling through two sets of great songs, with some marvelous humor (when people called out some of his songs as requests for the encore, he said, "Well, at least you know I'm not Rod Stewart." ). Now, you may think Stewart is just some Scottish folk-rocker singing soft rock/easy listening songs, but if that's your opinion I encourage to you pay attention to his lyrics. This man writes some deep songs. "Nostradamus" is more a movie than a song (about as long as a movie, too, clocking in at nearly ten minutes in length). "The Palace of Versailles" details the French Revolution in ways that you've never heard in a popular song. One of his biggest hits (second only to "Time Passages") was the year of the Vietnamese cat zodiac sign song "Year of the Cat." The song begins with a nod to the classic Casablanca: "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." (And a lot of people usually say, "Oh, is that what he's singing in that line?" ) Amid all the mysterious people in the streets in those opening scenes of the movie (if you've never seen Casablanca, what's wrong with you!!! Oh, and Rosebud is a sled...oops, wrong movie ending!) a woman "comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a water color in the rain." The narrator is watching the man (the "you" in the song) and the woman amid their evening together, and when he wakes up the next morning he discovers that he can't leave because the tourist bus he was part of has gone....and so has his ticket to get on it. He decides he'll stay with the woman, given that he apparently has no option ("you know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you've gotta stay"). This song was the US's introduction to Al Stewart. I'm sure glad the song made the introduction. His music is something I love to go to now and then for a "binge listening" experience. And, if he ever plays St. Louis again, I'll be there. Thanks for reading. Year of the Cat Written by Al Stewart and Peter Wood Recorded by Al Stewart From Year of the Cat, 1976 Don't bother asking for explanations: