Last week I finished reading A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles’ Song by Steve Turner. My daughter had bought it for me for Christmas, and I must confess, such was my conceit about my knowledge of all things Beatles that I doubted I would learn anything I didn’t already know. But as has been true in so many other areas in my life, I found out I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did, and learned all kinds of things I hadn’t been aware of. If you’ve never read it, and you love The Beatles, I highly recommend the book, it’s an excellent read.
But one thing that really popped out at me as I read the book was how often John and Paul provided feedback to each other that strengthened a song, even when they had written the song without the other initially. As a songwriting team, they didn’t just write together – they took songs they had written alone and workshopped them with each other. There were countless instances of one of them bringing in a song that was already mostly done, then the other pointed out some weak lines or fixed some lyrics that needed some work. Reading the book it occurred to me that was a major part of what made The Beatles so much stronger as a band than they ever were alone as ex-Beatles – even as John and Paul became less likely to write songs together from scratch, they still provided each other priceless feedback on how each other’s songs could be improved. Even the two greatest songwriters the world has ever known needed help from a partner, and did much better when they had one compared to when they tried to go it alone.
That is something I thought about as I listened to Cat Steven’s Teaser and the Firecat, which was recently re-released with several discs of outtakes, demos, live versions, and assorted other extras I will probably never bother to listen to. The album has four stone cold classics – plus a lot of songs that had some potential, but ones where the ever estimable Cat could have used someone to workshop his songs with. No lie, the experience of reading that book and then listening to Teaser right afterwards has changed my perspective on songwriting – I no longer believe it is a good idea for a songwriter to go it alone. However impressive and inspiring it is to think of an individual artist having a grand, individual, uncompromised, singular creative vision that is theirs and theirs alone, I think The Beatles are the perfect example of why it is far better to have a partner or small group of partners to take your songs out to the woodshed with and whip them into shape. Teaser and the Firecat is a great album, but I can’t help thinking how much greater and album it could have been had Cat had a Lennon-or-McCartney-like partner to give him some feedback and helpful suggestions.
Sure, there were a few songs on the album that are absolute perfection, and were best left untouched by other creative minds. Cat Stevens wrote a lot of fantastic songs in his career, and “Moonshadow” may well be the most fantastical. There is something so natural, so primal about that opening guitar part and that gorgeous melody – it’s like the song is as old as Creation and has been hanging around in the ether for the right artistic soul to discover it. It’s like something that has been buried in the depths of our collective unconscious waiting through centuries of generations for a starry-eyed singer-songwriter to excavate it and set it free again on the world. It’s like Stevens reached out a hand and snatched an ancient, timeless, beloved melody out of a passing breeze and set it to song. And it isn’t just the melody and the guitar, the lyrics are great too – it so clever the way he talks about how if he ever loses his eyes, his hands or his mouth, and he’ll come back with the most glass-half-full response imaginable. What an inspired piece of songwriting. I can think of few songs as lovely, and none lovelier. It’s a personal favorite of mine.
“Peace Train” is another stone cold classic – don’t know about you, but I sure wanna jump on the Peace Train when I hear the song, “EE-AH-EE-AH-OO-AH”s and everything. Great melody, kind of a cool idea as far as the message goes, and it’s got that great jumpy guitar beat that you find in so many Cat Stevens songs. The gospel-drenched backing vocals are a great touch too. There’s some genuine emotion in his voice when he sings the lines “I’ve been cryin’ lately/Thinking of the world as it is…”, and then that guitar chord comes crashing in. Priceless. This is another of Cat’s all-time best, how could you not love this song? Anyone who doesn’t love this song doesn’t have a soul, and isn’t anyone I would have any interest in ever knowing. From: https://brutallyhonestrockalbumreviews.wordpress.com/2022/01/14/album-review-cat-stevens-teaser-and-the-firecat/
