The songbook of Yusuf/Cat Stevens incorporates many songs that resonate loudly together with his legions of followers worldwide. However few have continued to the touch the hearts of successive generations as a lot as “Father and Son.”
The track arrived because the London-born artist was actually discovering his voice among the many new cohort of singer-songwriters. Stevens’ fourth album Tea For The Tillerman was launched in November, simply seven months after its predecessor, Mona Bone Jakon. It confirmed a craftsman reaching the highest of his inventive powers, on a succession of future classics that included “Wild World,” “Where Do The Children Play,” and this intense description of the daddy who struggles together with his son’s have to develop and escape the emotional confinement of their relationship.
It was when Island boss Chris Blackwell heard “Father and Son” that he resolved to signal Stevens to his label. Whereas the track solely grew to become a Prime 20 hit in Australia amongst main markets, it was central to the success of Tea For The Tillerman, which climbed to No.8 in a complete of 79 weeks on the Billboard LP chart. It went gold there in Might 1971 and, when entered for up to date certification in January 2001, triple platinum. Within the UK, the album didn’t attain its No.20 peak till early 1972, persevering with to dip out and in of the chart all through that yr.
The only could not have been successful in Stevens’ dwelling nation, however there have been clear indicators that he was growing a brand new viewers, maybe completely different from that which had given him his first hits some years earlier. One fan wrote to pop weekly File Mirror to explain “Father and Son” as “the most incredible thing I personally have heard since Lovin’ Spoonful.”
In 2020, when Yusuf reimagined the track and certainly the entire LP as Tea for the Tillerman², to mark its fiftieth anniversary, he instructed GQ: “‘Father And Son’ might be probably the most outstanding and profound track on the album. It doesn’t essentially check with my dad. It was initially written for a musical. So, after I had my first expedition, you may say, into the pop fray, which occurred in ’67, ’68, I used to be taken very ailing with tuberculosis and I used to be all of a sudden erased from the scene.
“Throughout that point, I used to be actually wanting inside myself and looking for the place my heart was, and the place I used to be going…all the large essential questions you ask your self while you’re on demise’s doorstep – or it appeared to me, anyway. And I got here again to my authentic ambition, which was to turn into a composer of musicals. I used to be dwelling within the West Finish, and musicals had been a giant factor in my life. I obtained along with Nigel Hawthorne, and we began scripting this musical referred to as Revolussia.
“Basically, it was about Nicholas and Alexander, the final tsars of Russia, and in opposition to that, there’s one other story about this household within the farmland, within the nation. And the daddy, in fact, mainly desires to maintain issues as they’re, whereas the son is de facto impressed by the revolution. He desires to hitch. And in order that’s the inspiration for that track.
“That’s why I’m able to represent both sides – though I feel that my preference, my emphasis, was on the son’s side, and the father’s arguments were not quite as strong as the son’s, which is interesting. Change is basically the theme of the song.”
It was a quarter-century earlier than “Father and Son” grew to become a serious hit, when Irish boy band Boyzone took it to No.2 within the UK. Extra lately, the track soundtracked the ending to the emotionally-charged Ted Lasso third season finale. Throughout a bittersweet montage, we see every character wrap up their story within the appropriately titled episode “So Long, Farewell.” Yusuf, as he was by then, mirrored on the track when the Boyzone model got here out, telling Entertainment Weekly: “The song is a testament to the differences we represent to each other, especially in age and traditions. Traditions have a big impact on our lives, and sometimes you’ve got to walk away.”
Purchase the Tremendous Deluxe Collector’s Version field set of Tea For The Tillerman.