Yusuf / Cat Stevens (Father)

So it was me talking to me in two different states of mind.

And you know, all the nuances of what a young man would be thinking when there's a revolution outside his front door, you know, that was pretty simple to put together.

And the words simply followed.

The song itself wasn't difficult to perform as two people, because I just simply shifted the octave up for the son and down for the father.

And that kind of has its own impact on the emotion.

At that point, we wanted to get some backing for the musical.

So my manager, he had some connections with some pretty rich people.

We met one of them, and when he heard this thing, he wasn't really interested, but he knew someone who was in the music business, and his name was Chris Blackwell.

Chris Blackwell, of course, ran Island Records.

Now, Island Records was a really, you know, elite company,

with a real leaning towards allowing artists to express themselves.

Well, that was pretty great.

So we played some of the songs.

When we got to Father and Son, I think his jaw dropped.

And he said...

look, I want to talk some more about this.

But then when we met next, he offered me, you know, a record contract.

And that was really, you know, that took me right off course as far as my musical was concerned.

So I said, yeah, well, okay.

You know, he said, we'll put you together with a producer.