Released - September 1972
Genre - Folk
Producer - Paul Samwell-Smith
Selected Personnel - Cat Stevens (Vocals/Guitar/Mandolin/Piano/Keyboards/Bass/Drums/Percussion); Alun Davies (Guitar); Gerry Conway (Drums/Percussion); Alan James (Double Bass); Jean Roussel (Piano/Organ); Del Newman (String Arrangements)
Standout Track - Ruins
Anybody who previously read my review of Cat Stevens's Teaser And The Firecat (I'm reliably informed by Google Analytics that people do come to this blog, though I've no idea who they are) might have sensed that, after three albums of his stellar singer-songwriter folk music, I was beginning to struggle to find new things to say about him. Well, that's true to a certain extent. As I said in that review, pretty much throughout his entire career Stevens very rarely felt the impulse to do much to radically transform or reinvent his music - there was his initial shift from novelty pop to spiritualistic folk inspired by his battle with tuberculosis, and that move established a pattern that he would continue to retread for many years up until his conversion to Islam in the late 70s, which would change the nature of his work for pretty much the rest of his career (his next album of popular, non-religious music wouldn't appear until 2006 in the form on An Other Cup, released under his new name Yusuf). So, while progressing through his early 70s album, there does eventually come a point when a lot of what can be said has already been said about the previous ones. Don't get me wrong - Catch Bull At Four (its title a reference to the Ten Bulls of Zen, a series of Buddhist poems, thereby again demonstrating Stevens's increasing fascination with non-Western religion and spiritualit) in no way represents a decline in quality, and its place on this list is highly earned - it contains some of Stevens's finest moments. But it does show the man continuing in the same vein that he had been working in over the previous two years, feeling little need to change or alter the kind of music he was making.
And why should he? Nobody could listen to Mona Bone Jakon, Tea For The Tillerman and Teaser And The Firecat and come away complaining of a lack of imagination or of a need for a creative renaissance. They are short and sweet and expertly crafted albums of simple and beautiful folk music, and Catch Bull At Four continues in much the same vein. Things kick off in fine style with "Sitting," one of the album's true highpoints and one of his very greatest up-tempo songs. Driven by the bright chiming of Stevens's piano, and delivered in the gruff, ravaged voice Stevens occasionally deploys to such devastating effect, it's perhaps the only song on the album that continues the ongoing theme of his need for spiritual fulfilment, of his sense of being on a spiritual journey and searching for something to give him the sense of purpose he so desired, a journey that first showed its tentative beginnings back on Mona Bone Jakon. "The Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head" is a more subdued affair, a fairly standard acoustic Stevens folk parable full of little village ceremonies and furtive affairs in stables. "Angelsea" is one of the more unusual songs in Stevens's catalogue, featuring the odd, buzzing drone of a synthesiser alongside the jubilant guitar strumming of Stevens and longtime cohort Alun Davies. It's lyrically a fairly by-the-numbers paean of absolute adoration to some idealised idea of womanhood, but manages to come off as a genuinely endearing expounding of love on account of its sheer energy and sincerity. The other affecting love song on offer is "Sweet Scarlet," a song which, given the touching and fascinating nature of the lyrics, is a song I really wish had more musical value to make me really enjoy it. It's Stevens's tribute to Carly Simon, a singer he had been dating in the months before Catch Bull At Four with whom he had shared a producer in the form of Paul Samwell-Smith (probably most famous for singing "Nobody Does It Better," the theme tune to the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, years later). The lyrics show a fascinatingly mature perspective on such a short and recent relationship, and history seems to be unclear as to whether Stevens wrote it while seeing her or shortly after they broke up - it's a song laden with unabashed affection and fondness, and the line "I want you so to know there's no bridge between us" could be read in many different ways depending on the song's exact context - whether it's a heartfelt tribute to a woman he now feels more close to than ever, or a touching farewell to a loved one left behind without an acrimony or hard feelings is difficult to discern, but it's a fascinating laden with some of Stevens's best symbolism.
But the two songs that really jump out and demand the listener's attention here (other than the brilliant "Sitting") rank among two of Stevens's finest. The first is the album's centrepiece, the clattering, jubilant "Can't Keep It In." It takes all the energy and joy of "Sitting" and ramps things up tenfold, propelled as usual by the playful dynamism between Stevens and Davies on guitar duties as well as the thumping drums of Gerry Conway, while Stevens again barks and cries hoarsely in a barely constrained, ecstatic tribute to the joy of being unable to withhold one's happiness or love. It's one of Stevens's simplest songs, but all the better for it and is one of his most joyous pop songs. Then there's "Ruins." It's just possible that if it weren't for "Ruins," I'd think twice about including Catch Bull At Four on this list, given how it more or less just demonstrates Cat Stevens following his well-worn formula with some fantastic highlights. But no album that includes a song as devastatingly powerful as "Ruins" can be given short shrift. Quite simply, it's one of the three finest songs Stevens ever wrote, along with "Father And Son" and "Sun/C79." It features dim echoes of some of the environmental messages Stevens was concerned with on the likes of "Where Do The Children Play?", telling a story of someone who returns to their hometown to find it a blackened ruin of its former self. The verses are tentative and trembling, but tinged with a sweetness and a sense of distant optimism that builds into a fantastically rousing chorus (where Conway's drums crack and boom like never before) that manages to summon up all the strange trepidation but the warming comfort of returning somewhere familiar to find it different. It's ultimately a very optimistic song, I think - while its closing lines condemn the actions that have moved the world closer to ruin and further away from innocence, it seems to feel as though it's still within our grasp to keep things familiar, and to keep the places we call home the way we remember them. A really, truly brilliant song, and one of the most rousing and inspiring choruses of all time.
So, there we have it - further excellence from Mr Stevens which treads familiar ground but manages to do just about enough to keep it fresh (it features far more electronic instrumentation, from guitar to synth, than any of his preceding albums), while also managing to turn in a few of his very finest moments. By this time, perhaps even Stevens himself, a man who had shown no qualms about repeating himself up until now, was becoming tired of the same old thing, and his next album would see him not exactly rewriting the rulebook but certainly taking a few more risks than he had in recent years to deliver a work of greater ambition and scale than ever before. But Catch Bull At Four is a fitting full-stop to this early run of classic albums before he began to rethink his approach. Oh, and "O Caritas" is a piece of Spanish-styled flamenco so brilliantly affected it comes across as almost tongue-in-cheek, and easily another album highlight if only for novelty value.
Track Listing:
All songs written by Cat Stevens except where noted.
1. Sitting
2. Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head
3. Angelsea
4. Silent Sunlight
5. Can't Keep It In
6. 18th Avenue
7. Freezing Steel
8. O Caritas (Andreas Toumazis; Jeremy Taylor & Cat Stevens)
9. Sweet Scarlet
10. Ruins
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