Even in the beginning, when we knew there was a legal argument about how much our song sounds like his song, as one songwriter to another, I wasn't sure that Cat Stevens would take that as bad.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Anyway, Cat Stevens is never going to make much money out of us.
With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues.
At the height of his popularity in 1977, Cat Stevens converted to Islam and dedicated his life to educational and philanthropic causes.
I'm tired of Glen Matlock saying he was the songwriter for the Sex Pistols. I co-wrote as many songs... but I don't go shouting about it.
I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.
One of the greatest tools you have as a songwriter is anonymity. If someone knows too much about the songwriter, they don't get to insert their own characters. I don't want the audience thinking about the gay guy who wrote the song.
I think it's a great document of John Stevens' originality. At that time he was already much more fully formed in his conception than I was. I was sort of struggling to keep up, and sometimes it's pretty obvious.
A lot of cats in New Orleans, very soulful, very soulful musicians and they assume that they're singers. And they just make that assumption. And so when there's a little intonation problem, people are very forgiving of them because they heard how soulful they play.
A lot of our tracks have sounded a lot better than I thought they would because of recording, mixing, and because I probably didn't hear it that way. I'm not a songwriter.
Cat Stevens' music, voice, and energy made me feel so secure. He sounded different from some of the paternal figures in my life, so gentle and kind.