Elegantly produced by Alan Parsons, Al Stewart's Year of the Cat is a classic of smooth 70s light rock. It's like going to bed on a warm summer night as a breeze blows lightly through the curtains. Like snuggling on a soft giant papasan chair in 1976 and having this on eight-track. Like buttah. No rough spots whatsoever; even the heavier guitar solo is balanced by strings to maintain the equilibrium.
If it were some sappy 70s love song I wouldn't like it. It's romantic, yes, but also esoteric and cool, like a Bogart movie. A tourist arrives in a town and meets a mysterious woman. He spends the night with her and in the morning realizes that he has been left behind by his tour group so he is stuck there. No big deal to him, he's carefree and open. Any way the wind blows....
It has some of my favorite lyrics of any song, especially:
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Gives me goosebumps sometimes when I hear that.
Also, you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime. I had no idea who Peter Lorre was for a long time, but I knew his voice from cartoons. Eventually I saw him in Casablanca. He was also incredible in M.
She comes in incense and patchouli. Nowadays, whenever I hear the word patchouli I imagine John Cusack telling Tim Robbins to get his 'patchouli stink outta my store' in High Fidelity. Great film for music geeks.
The middle instrumental passage is great as well. It flows...strings at 3:10 into light electric guitar at 3:24 into heavier electric guitar at 3:54 into Phil Kenzie's superb saxophone at 4:14...then into the final verse.
FYI: the cat is the fourth animal symbol in the 12-year cycle of the Vietnamese zodiac, replacing the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. So, if you were born in 1963, 1975, 1987, or 1999, you might be a cat. Can you say 'meow'?
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