Wild World – Cat Stevens

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Wild World – Cat Stevens


Another one of those random songs I first heard on a compilation cassette, this time passed to me by a neighbour after they had collected enough points at petrol station to be given a free album. It was a very odd selection with this song in the middle of it. I had no idea who Cat Stevens was, not heard of him at this point or his story of how he gave up fame and changed his name to follow his new found religion.

I just thought it was a very poetic song, really simple backing and heartfelt. The singer is telling the person in the song that now their leaving him it's breaking his heart but he feels they need to be warned that the world can be a harsh place. The words don't let us know if this person is his partner or maybe his daughter, but either way you get his sentiment. The lyrics probably aren't that PC these days but you have to judge a song on it's time in history.

Cat Stevens wrote some big hits along the way, 'Father and Son' being another favourite of his. He also had a hit with 'Morning Has Broken' a song I remember we sang a lot at school from our little blue song book which we used to have to sing along to a national school broadcast radio show.

The strange thing is that this song was released in 1970 and sadly 50 years later it feels more true than ever that it's a Wild World.

Favourite lyric : I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear / But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there
Location: Rayleigh, UK

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