Salman Rushdie emailed Howard Fishman, the author of a long Washington Post article called "The Meaning of Yusuf/Cat Stevens/After a brilliant but turbulent career, he is reemerging on the public stage. How should we feel about him — and his music — now?"
Fishman, who is a culture writer, and who clearly wants to be able to indulge himself in the pleasures of listening to the wonderful old Cat Stevens recordings, goes on to say:
Stevens has said he never agreed with the fatwa, and that he wishes people would simply “move on” from this decades-old issue. But the fatwa was not some historical footnote. There were bombings of bookstores; people associated with the book were killed or attacked.
I also learned that the incident was not an isolated example of Stevens making public statements at odds with the gentle, liberal-minded nature of his music. In a 1987 appearance at the University of Houston, he described the Jewish faith as “a distortion of monotheism,” and questioned basic concepts of modern science, including the theory of evolution.
In a 1993 lecture, he called those who would hurry to Rushdie’s defense hypocrites for giving America a pass for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In another appearance archived on YouTube (removed since the time I began writing this piece), he defended the punishment of amputation for thievery, and in a 1997 interview with Andrew Anthony for the U.K. newspaper the Observer, he played down reports of deaths by stoning of adulterous women in Afghanistan — arguing that this penalty has value as a deterrent.
It now felt crucial to follow up again and to see whether Stevens might talk to me about Rushdie after all....
He wouldn't.
I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time.
Writing this post took me back to this half-century-old interview:
Pop Music- First allow us to ask some stupid questions. Can you explain the meanings of the titles of your two last albums, "Mona Bone Jakon" and "Tea for the Tillerman".
Cat Stevens - "Mona Bone Jakon" is another name for my "penis". It's the name I give it. It's not some sort of secret vocabulary, it's just something I made up. "Tea for the Tillerman" ... "tillerman" is guy who tills the land, a sort of peasant. This has a direct connection with the drawing on the cover. I loved that drawing so much, it brings back many elements of the song, that I thought that the title was perfect to go along with the album.
PM - Did you write the song after you made the drawing?
CS - No, I just had some little bits of song, and then I made the drawing. That went very well. That agreed very well with the LP. I love to paint. I'd like to return to painting anew, but I don't have the time. It cost me a lot by not painting. That frees my mind. Completely.
Here's that drawing:
And as long as he brought up his penis, I'll give you this Norm Macdonald quote that I stumbled across earlier this morning, from "15 Norm MacDonald Quotes That Prove He’s A Genius":
In a survey this week, men said they preferred penis size to height. Sixty-two percent of men said they’d rather be 5’2″ with a seven-inch penis. Thirty-six percent said they’d rather be 6’3″ with a three-inch penis. And the remaining two percent said they’d rather be 1’4″ with a 300-inch penis.Maybe that offers a path of insight into that fatwa.
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66 comments:
"I’m afraid Cat Stevens got off the peace train a long time ago."
Can a good Muslim be on the "peace train"? I don't mean it as snark. Seriously: doesn't Islam demand of the believer that s/he is ready to do actually battle? Can a good Muslim accept, on principle, permanent peaceful coexistence with unbelievers?
"Stevens has said he never agreed with the fatwa, and that he wishes people would simply “move on” from this decades-old issue. But the fatwa was not some historical footnote. There were bombings of bookstores; people associated with the book were killed or attacked. "
"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
Where would we be without Monty Python to heap scorn on the well deserving?
This All just comes down, to a simple mistranslation!
Islam is The Religion of Peace.
When Yusuf Islam sang "peace train" people need to realize, the correct translation was:
"Submit to the Will of Allah; OR we will drive a train over your infidel body!"
DEATH TO THE INFIDEL! ALLAHU AKBAR!! Allah is Greatest!!!
Using the 'was a different person' criterium should allow Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.
Others can appreciate an artistic expression even when they find the ideas of the artist reprehensible. I usually cannot. I can separate out behavior (which can have multiple causes), or ideas once held that are now disowned, but ideas flow into the art and then back again. Technical skill is neutral. I suppose ideas in one sphere might be so unrelated to another that the art can also be separated, but I doubt that is as possible as people think.
"...hypocrites for giving America a pass for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Huh. Remind me, who was Salman Rushdie at war with?
Stevens is a hypocrite and an asshole. Who doesn't know this?
His music is catchy but very simplistic...perfect for 14-year-old girls getting over their first breakup.
But God bless him for selling millions of copies of schlock...
I lucked into a last minute ticket to see him in SF a few years ago, and it was one of my favorite concerts I have ever attended. If you can't forgive artists for bad views, you're only hurting yourself. Especially as a conservative.
"I’m afraid Cat Stevens got off the peace train a long time ago"
If you're a Muslim, you're prohibited from ever boarding any peace train or any leave-others-alone-so-that-they-can-live-their-own-lives train.
[Surah 9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
Meaning of course subject to Islamic rule/law. And until that happens = NO PEACE.
"It now felt crucial to follow up again and to see whether Stevens might talk to me about Rushdie after all...."
The focus on feelings just seems self-indulgent in a journalist. Oh, you *feel* like you need to get this interview? Why? Why are your feelings predominant? Why cannot you you reason out an intellectual basis for why this article needs this interview? I understand journalists following a hunch and thus uncovering a story. But I damn well expect the story itself to be about the facts. The hunch led you to a factual truth. You may have followed your gut, but the rest of us should be able to follow your facts. So where's the facts? Where's the rational basis, not the emotional basis, for pursuing this interview?
Into White was good. Musically very similar to Dixie Chicks' Cowboy Take Me Away. Similar treatment of the violin.
If you're not a lefty you're constantly faced with popular artists who disagree with your politics. Most of these disagreements were less apocalyptic than they are today. I remember rolling my eyes at the long-ago No Nukes concert--great tunes sung by some of my favorite artists who were, and remain, energy-policy imbeciles.
But Yusuf Islam crossed the line. I saw what he said about the fatwa when he said it. It's cowardly not to admit and apologize for it. I'm an amateur gigging musician and right from that day I stopped singing his music. Breaks my heart because I loved his stuff and a lot of that 70's music is in my wheelhouse and still popular. I even love that Tea From the Tillerman cover. But when I replaced all my LPs with CDs, I skipped Cat Stevens, and when I converted all my CDs to FLAC and filled in some gaps, I made it a point to skip him again.
It is great to finaly learn what Mono Jone Bakon means.
Did he change into a different person when he changed his name? [did he change his name]
it may be useful if gender fluid/undecided people used different names as they flow / decide so that we can tell what is going on / and not project schizo on them !
You should have led with the Norm Macdonald joke ...
the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time.
This! Regard Cat Stevens the singer and songwriter as a man who died on Christmas Eve 1977. You can put him alongside Morrison, Joplin, Ochs, Hendrix, and many more.
I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time.
Nothing wrong with that. Roger Waters has become a nasty antisemite, but that doesn't stop me from listening to Dark Side of The Moon even though I otherwise studiously avoid him.
This is odd, but I have always had an intense, almost physical, dislike for the Tea for the Tillerman album cover. Seeing it this time finally made me pinpoint the source of the discomfort: the too-long table cloth draped over the work boots. Also, the kid in the tree...what's with those eyes?
In a 1987 appearance at the University of Houston, he described the Jewish faith as “a distortion of monotheism,”
Actually, I think Islam is a Jewish heresy. Mohammad wrote the Quran to try to convince Jews in Arabia, who were a large population at the time, that his new religion was an improvement. They rejected it as they rejected Christianity and kept their old religion. Mohammad, of course, was angered by this rejection and Islam has attacked Jews since then.
I remember Cat Stevens defending the Fatwa against Rushdie. I saw the video, I know what he said, and I know he's been lying about it ever since.
I suppose if you owned his albums pre-fatwa, that's ok. He already has your money, there's no harm in taking pleasure from his music. But buying his albums today, putting money in his pockets, that's a different story.
As it is, supporting Cat Stevens is like supporting Roman Polanski.
Muslims use "Taqiyah" (or however it is spelled) and "Kitman".
Their ideas about integrity and honor are fluid.
What he said back then? Forget it.
He wishes we all would.
Hard for me to listen to Stevens's Ride of the Valkyries.
"I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time."
Personally, I'd just treat them as songs I like without regard to their source. But then I was never much bothered with the concept of using things like Nazi medical data. OK, maybe a little bothered, but they exist and aren't going away if I ignore them. It's the people who were evil, not the data (or the songs).
The old problem of separating the art from the execrable artist.
Cat Stevens is his dead name. Yusef Islam was Cat Stevens but apparently not anymore. Let Yusef perform in Iran where he is better appreciated.
I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time.
Like me enjoying Brecht's work from before he became a commie.
I always thought that the "tillerman" was the guy at the tiller steering the boat. You learn something new every day...
Yousef Islam represents the true spirit of Islam - intolerance, hatred of music and rejection of the modern world. But obviously he’s out of money so time to mine the suckers. His pronouncements over the years reflected his “pure” beliefs after he tried various religions as a youth. Sorry, you don’t get to claim you “didn’t mean it” now.
I really loved Cat Stevens work. But after he converted they were silent forever.
I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person — a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time.
I would have a hard time buying any of the Cat Stevens songs that I don't already have. but, like you, I'm happy to listen to and enjoy the ones I already own
Ever since I heard him cover - and destroy - the beautiful Sam Cooke classic "Another Saturday Night", well, he's been dead to me.
So if current Yusef Islam comes to Madison to perform old Cat Stevens, wiuld current Ann Althouse attend?
Amazing, so he says something about Judaism 35 years ago. And why is that relevant?
College girls were still listening to those Cat Stevens albums in 1992 when I settled my daughter into her dorm room. I was stunned when I saw them. My friends and I thought he was a brainless hippie in 1970.
When "Tea for the Tillerman" came out, I was 15 years old and living near a fire station in suburban Chicago. In my frame of reference, a "tillerman" was the guy who sat on the back end of the aerial unit and steered the rear wheels.
Now, I find out that it was a usage he just made up himself for the album.
Is it weird that the son of a Greek father became a Muslim, given all the conflict between Greeks and Muslim Turks? Does the fact that his brother became a Jew at about the same time make in more or less weird?
I just wish he had finished Revolussia and staged it. It might have been terrible, but it's more appealing to wonder why artists didn't finish a work and make it public, than to complain that they did.
Stevens/Islam has, or perhaps had, some odious views. Fine. But intelligent people can separate art from the artist. Are we no longer allowed to enjoy Wagner now either?
How should we feel..."
Beware of anyone who asks this.
Cancel the bastard already
".. If you can't forgive artists for bad views, you're only hurting yourself...."
How conservatives use the rope provided by leftists to hang ourselves. We'll enjoy our pleasures until we're not allowed to any longer.
"But then I was never much bothered with the concept of using things like Nazi medical data."
Me neither and I don't get the anathema. If I was tortured like those folks were, endured all that, I'd want something beneficial for mankind to come out of it. Knowing that might even be a salve during the horrors. And I'd be kinda pissed to learn someone was preventing that.
"Mona Bone Jakon" is another name for my "penis".
Well, that escalated quickly.
I believe changing your religion is a form of mental illness.
You do know that Cat Stevens gave his seat on that airplane to Jim Croce.
They had both been playing the field house at NorthWestern State University. Cat Stevens was the main act, but gave up his seat on the airplane because Croce was going to miss a gig up in Shreveport.
Yes, I made that up, but see how easy it is to do???......and I don't like Joe Islam.
The famed folk singer was seduced by Islam. He ceased to be Cat Stevens and became Yosef Islam. When that happened, the good man that sang those songs was destroyed. So what I tell you is true, from a certain point of view.
>>I love the old Cat Stevens recordings myself, and the way I deal with it is just regard them as having been made by a different person
I could understand your take if he apologized and admitted.
Instead, he lies about it... which suggests he's still the same person, just in disguise.
“So if current Yusef Islam comes to Madison to perform old Cat Stevens, wiuld current Ann Althouse attend?”
It would depend on the circumstances.
If he played at the Stoughton Opera House, hadn’t said anything vile recently, and had grown out his hair, yes.
I’m being followed by that loon Madcow
loon Madcow loon Madcow
Team Cat Stevens up with Stevie Nicks and call ‘em the Lambchops.
Release an album called “We Got the Bleat”.
“Gold, Jerry, GOLD!!!”
Would you dance at his concert?
Cat Stevens struck me as more of a Brit than a Muslim when I encountered him a couple of times over the last few years.
For instance, when working with his sound man during sound check Stevens was demanding, impatient, but polite. So insistent upon getting it right, he delayed opening theater doors. Classic old-school British musician.
He travels with his son, and there wasn't a religious vibe.
Alun Davies, Stevens long time guitarist, still tours with him. He did not feel inhibited from asking me where to go for a pint after the show.
I would not find it surprising that a once strident Cat Stevens mellowed and became more tolerant, evidenced by his daily routine of being on the road surrounded by people who aren't believers.
"rcocean said...
Amazing, so he says something about Judaism 35 years ago. And why is that relevant?"
What he expressed was not a personal fleeting opinion but rather an expression of his adherence to a religious doctrine.
"According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97-98). Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews." (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myths-and-facts-the-treatment-of-jews-in-arab-islamic-countries)
He has not repudiated his Muslim faith or expressed a belief in a reformed version of Islam.
I recognize Yusef's right to provide financially for his family but don't appreciate or respect his willingness to lie by omission in order to do that.
There's a saying, there is no redemption without repentance. As far as I can tell, Yusef has not repented for his views.
Is it just me who remembers Rushdie's cringing apology for giving offense? Something to the effect that he "lost my faith, and thus my reason."
It astonished me, and he later recanted that (also IIRC), or I wouldn't have the memory at all.
Anyway, Stevens was a real but minor talent, Yusuf Islam is a minor but real dipshit.
"...hypocrites for giving America a pass for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t on a troop ship in the Pacific steaming towards Japan in late July or the first week of August in 1945.
Maybe that offers a path of insight into that fatwa.
I've always suspected that Islam's history of aggression stems from Mohammad's eency little pee-pee. It must have been exceptionally miniscule; how else could he have sex with a 9-year-old girl without killing her? Heck, she probably did even notice. (Are you done now, Uncle 'Mad? I'd like to go play with my dollie now.)
Khomeini was probably similarly endowed. You don't acquire such a permanent scowl except by being reminded of your inferiority every time Nature calls. (Hey! I know what your thinking. Rest assured bathroom visits are the next best thing to defeating Hannibal for good old Quaestor.)
I don't put much stock in musicians/artists politics. Unless they are pedophiles like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. There are others.
Iman declared a chubwa on Stevie Nicks back in 1975. Alas, no doin’, no inshallah…
I've pretty much detached the art from the artist at this point. If I limited my music to people I personally approved, my song list would be sparse. It has gotten to the point where I intentionally do not research musicians just so I do not get tempted.
That said, if the song ticks me off or otherwise offends me then I keep it off. For some reason, I still have "Imagine" on my playlist despite this. It is the most beautiful, terrible song ever written.
"...a man who lived, was great, and who has been gone for a long time."
There's a YouTube clip I saw a few years ago of Cat Stevens in performance in the old days. A tall, lanky guy, he walks up to a microphone set far too low for him. He addresses the audience and starts a minor tirade, something like, "Now, who would do something as stupid as this?"
I was pretty surprised. The guy who made the most interesting music and looked like Jesus doing it...showed he could be an arrogant asshole, just like Joe Smith said.
Richard Thompson is another English folk rock musician who converted to Islam; in RT’s case, in the early ’70s and (mostly) Sufism. AFAICT, Thompson has avoided the acrimony that the former Cat Stevens has largely brought on himself. Maybe it’s the Sufi influence; on RT’s early-2000s “The Old Kit Bag” release, the song “Outside of the Inside” held up the fundamentalist Muslim viewpoints to scorn and ridicule.
And of course, RT is a drastically better songwriter than Yusuf, one of the best guitarists in any branch of popular music in the last 55 years, and a marvelous performer. Maybe that helps too.
This reminds me of those democrats who loved Trump until he converted to Republicanism. Now they try to get his cameo appearances banned from old movies.
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t on a troop ship in the Pacific steaming towards Japan in late July or the first week of August in 1945.
My old man was a P-51 Mustang pilot. He spent the summer of '45 training for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. His squadron's intelligence officer had told the men that they could expect 80 or 90 percent casualties in the first month of the invasion. To his dying day he blessed the men who made and dropped the atomic bomb. He even took me to a lecture by Col. Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, in the late 70's. I got to shake his hand and listen as my dad thanked him for saving his life.
If I can appreciate Leni Riefenstahl's films and Dmitry Shostakovich's music, I suppose I can like Cat Stevens' early work while disliking his later work and politic.
Heck, if I let politics rule I would have to choose between Beethoven's Third Symphony and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. What is the point of that?
Cat Stevens has a penis?
Came here for the comments on Norm's penis joke and all I got were comments on a early emo singer whose work I couldn't stomach during the 70s, way before he decided to switch to an anti-Western religion but apparently decided that switching to the culture that came with his new religion had too much of a negative impact on his personal finances.
Or maybe he's just selling rope, intending to use the proceeds on efforts to undermine Western culture. That sounds decidedly like the CCP, and a sufficient reason not to spend money to benefit this singer.
Oh, well. I'll still continue to check for Norm penis joke comments so please don't keep letting me down.
He "borrowed" his best hit from a hymn book.
I guess in the early Seventies it wasn't enough to be a popular tunesmith. You had to be deep, or at least appear to be so, and you would be judged harshly if you wrote and performed but weren't much of a thinker. Those were the days when "rock criticism" was still a thing. Today, we don't pin our hopes on popular music so we're less judgmental.
I wonder, though, if the reproach of being shallow led him to look for something unquestionably "deep," some monolithic truth, or if he was just following the fashion of the times. I also wonder why he stopped with the Salafi version of Islam, rather than moving on to the Sufi variant, which has been more favored by artists.
Rushdie seems to have picked this unbelief in every institution, from his schooling and his time at ogilvy, he raged against indias wars of self defense, against thatcher, for the sandinistas, he didn't contend with islamists believing onto death,
Skookum John said...
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t on a troop ship in the Pacific steaming towards Japan in late July or the first week of August in 1945.
My father was there. To this day, he gives thanks to President Harry Truman for ending the war when he was given the means to do so.
So "defeating Hannibal" is the cool new euph for You Know What now! Good to know.
IIRC, Vonnegut described his penis as a couple of inches long and about nine around--something like that. I always take a guy's word on that topic.
Speaking of Hitler, he's quoted as defending, of all things, The Magic Flute, and explaining that all artists are children, really, and can't be expected to understand politics.
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