Cat Stevens was one of the voices of my youth, an enchanting singer/songwriter whose records were a spiritual quest in search of the ideal life, and carried messages of peace and universal human harmony. I knew he found the answer in the Muslim religion, stopped making rock and changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and for me, Cat Stevens was a voice from the past, someone who died before I got around to listen to him. Islam and pop were completely alien to one another, and the possibility of a connection ever forming between them, or that we will ever hear Stevens singing pop again, seemed like fantasy. From time to time, the media published stories (completely distorted) on Yusuf, which made him seem like a rabid fundamentalist, and he was for me a completely different person than the man I heard in the old albums.
In 2004, I opened the radio in my car and heard a young singer, which I later learned was Ronan Keating, covering Stevens' classic 'Father and Son'. I wasn't very impressed, but I let it play on. And then, an unmistakable voice joined it, a little older and cracked, but still full of soul, still the same soul from back then. I recognized him instantly, and it was like hearing a voice from the beyond coming out of my radio, sending a quiver down my spine that did not subside for several days. The few lines he sang were enough to make me fall in love with him all over again.
Turns out Yusuf never quit singing – he just sang religious songs, shunning the sinful world of pop. But the war that broke out between Islam and the West encouraged him to try and form a bridge between the worlds, and sound a message of peace once again. Somehow, the path his life took brought him to be exactly in the right place at the right time, to make a difference. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center he participated in the concert for New York, and performed his song 'Peace Train' for the first time after more than twenty years. Around that time he announced that there is no contradiction between the religion of Islam and the secular world of pop, and those who think otherwise are wrong. His duet with Keating announced his return to the pop world, and since then he's with us again, writing and performing in his familiar style, which still sound good.
'Father and Son' was one of Stevens' biggest records, a dialogue between the rebellious son who looks for a different existence than what the world has to offer, and the settled-down father who advises him to conform. In the original recording from 1971, Stevens sings both parts, but there's no question he identifies with the son. Here, he takes the role of the father, and this is the role he took in real-life as well, the role of the adult who tries to advise the young, and steer them in more positive directions. In today's Muslim world, such people have a lot of value.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment