Year of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1976 and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece, its sales helped by the hit single "Year of the Cat", "one of those 'mysterious woman' songs," co-written by Peter Wood. The other single from the album was "On the Border". Stewart wrote "Lord Grenville" about the Elizabethan sailor and explorer Sir Richard Grenville (1542–1591).
Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he even had a title of any of the songs. In a Canadian radio interview he stated that he has done this for 6 of his albums, and he often writes four different sets of lyrics for each song. The title track derives from a song Stewart wrote in 1966 called "Foot of the Stage" with prescient lyrics about Tony Hancock, one of Britain's favorite comedians who tragically committed suicide two years later. When Stewart discovered that Hancock was not well known in the United States, he went back to his original title "Year of the Cat".
Read more about Year Of The Cat: Cover Art, Personnel, Charts
Famous quotes containing the words year and/or cat:
“In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do,—
Only—be it near to you!
For I’d rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care:
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city’s year forlorn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““And how do you know that you’re mad?”
“To begin with,” the Cat said, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)