Hal Ashby’s 1971 film Harold & Maude was many issues – a supremely quirky romance, an existential treatise, and one of the crucial enduring cult films of all time. Nevertheless it was above all a celebration of affection, and when there was like to have a good time in 1971, Yusuf/Cat Stevens was the person for the job.
It appears unimaginable now to separate the film from its soundtrack. And with the soundtrack turning into extensively obtainable for the primary time, it’s value a have a look at the way it obtained there. First off, 1971 was arguably the very best time to ask Cat Stevens to attain a film. He was simply hitting inventive stride, following a tuberculosis expertise that threatened his life and induced him to re-think the pop-idol path he’d been getting into.
The Harold and Maude soundtrack is out now.
The primary consequence was 1970’s Mona Bone Jakon, which launched the extra introspective songwriter the world would come to know – a person already torn between the lures of spirituality and sensuality. This might inform his controversial masterpiece, the next yr’s Tea for the Tillerman.
Having turned his again on pop stardom (and even sending it up on a Mona monitor, “Pop Star”) he was about to grow to be a real celebrity. He already had one sturdy reference to cinema: His girlfriend was the actress Patti d’Arbanville, who was the topic of each his breakthrough UK hit (“Lady d’Arbanville”) and his first US one (“Wild World,” about their breakup).
Enter director Hal Ashby, a maverick artist in his personal proper, already identified within the movie world as a nonconformist and a little bit of hippie, which was one motive why Stevens instantly favored him As he stated in a 2014 interview, Ashby “looked like a guru, not a proper film director.” Harold & Maude was solely his second movie, following The Landlord, which was one other darkish comedy about gentrification in a New York neighborhood; many critics have since famous how prophetic that subject was.
Harold & Maude was tailored from a cult-classic novel by the Australian author Colin Higgins, and Ashby initially had his eye on a distinct British singer-songwriter. Elton John was briefly thought of not solely to attain the movie, however to play the lead. However Elton already had his palms full – he was scoring the film Mates, a extra standard teenage romance – and doubtless not fascinated with a dramatic lead position, one thing he nonetheless hasn’t finished.
In any case, Ashby discovered his good Harold in Bud Cort (whose earlier credit learn like a catalog of 60s counterculture films: MASH, The Strawberry Assertion, Brewster McCloud), the best Maude within the nice veteran actress Ruth Gordon, and the proper songwriter in Cat Stevens. Because the latter stated in that 2014 Academy salute to Ashby, he instantly associated to Harold’s character: “I was dark and mysterious at one time in my life. That’s why I was looking for the light so hard.”
Stevens donated songs from the current Mona and the forthcoming Tillerman albums, however was requested by Ashby to put in writing some authentic ones as effectively. “So I went into Wally Heider’s [studio] in San Francisco and cut these songs that I always wanted to re-record properly, but I never did because he wanted them for the film.” The film, he stated, “captures the emotions [in the songs] so perfectly.”
One factor is for certain, nonetheless: Regardless of how diehard of a Yusuf/Cat Stevens fan you’re, you in all probability didn’t personal the soundtrack. That’s as a result of there by no means was one the primary time round. Maybe his label A&M was good sufficient to not glut the market with Cat product when he was on the verge of an enormous breakthrough (Higher to save lots of the eye for his subsequent full album, Teaser & the Firecat).
There was a short-lived Japanese launch in 1972, that was much less a real soundtrack than a Cat Stevens compilation, with some songs not within the film and neither of the unique songs that had been. It took filmmaker and musicologist Cameron Crowe to launch a soundtrack LP on his personal Vinyl Movies label in 2007 – however all 2500 copies obtained snapped up instantly, and a used one would run you $500.
The 2 unreleased songs wound up being the important thing ones within the film, and neither was obtainable on vinyl for a full 13 years after the movie’s launch (they had been first on the 1984 compilation, Footsteps within the Darkish). “Don’t Be Shy” is just not solely a classic Cat love track, it’s the one which performs when the 19-year-old Harold first spots the 79-year-old Maude; the track evokes the elation of affection at first sight.
Nevertheless it’s the opposite new tune, the supremely joyful “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out” that turns into the film’s emotional middle. The track is first heard when Maude sings it – she turns into the life drive that counters Harold’s dying obsession – and it reappears as their romance unfolds. Lastly, it’s heard on the movie’s finish, as Harold makes his life-or-death selection. Regardless of its delayed launch, the track’s grow to be certainly one of Stevens’ most beloved.
For a few years, followers have assembled their very own soundtracks out of the songs’ launched variations. However with the reissue of this soundtrack, the acquainted songs can lastly be heard alongside the alternate and instrumental variations, the essential bits of dialogue, and the pleasant Ruth Gordon vocal. And if you wish to sing out, you realize what to do.
The Harold and Maude soundtrack is out now.
