Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” was one of the biggest hits of 1977. It was led by an irresistible piano riff composed and performed by Peter Wood and featured a fabulous mid-song instrumental consisting of successive portions of orchestral strings, acoustic guitar played by Peter White, lead electric guitar played by Tim Renwick and finally a scorching saxophone played by Phil Kenzie. By dialing in at 6:40, a single version had to be created that truncates the intro and instrumentals to 4:38.
The unusual lyrics portray a guy visiting a faraway and exotic country who meets a charming and sensual young woman. She inexplicably joins him without even allowing him the opportunity to question his motives or the reason for his wishes. Its appearance and fragrance are intoxicating. He follows her until she is completely lost in a foreign land. She takes him on a clandestine romantic encounter. Waking up the next day, he realizes that his fellow tourists have left without him, the tour bus and all. That plus a lost ticket means a much longer stay than you anticipated.
The song didn’t start that way.
Have you heard of a song called “Foot of the Stage”? I thought so. The reason it hasn’t is because that was the original version of “Year of the Cat.” Al Stewart wrote the lyrics a decade earlier after seeing British comedian Tony Hancock perform in Bournemouth, England. This was not your average comic performance. Hancock suffered from depression and it showed in his performance. As Stewart himself described it, “He came on stage and said ‘I don’t want to be here. I’m totally pissed off with my life. I’m a complete loser, this is stupid. I know why I don’t end it all here.’ And everyone laughed. Because that was the character he played … kind of a dejected character. And I looked at him and I thought, my God, he means it. This is real. “
This heartbreaking encounter caused Stewart to write the first draft of what would later (after much mutation) become a top-ten hit. But the first draft had lyrics like “Your tears fall like rain at the foot of the stage.” This was porterus: Hancock committed suicide two years later from a drug overdose.
“Foot of the Stage” was never recorded. Stewart was reluctant to profit from Hancock’s disappearance. He also realized that it would not help to write a song about a comedian that no one in America had ever heard of. But Stewart rescued the song anyway, writing the lyrics for what is now “Year of the Cat.” His love for the movie “Casablanca” inspired this remake, which includes references to Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. Then he saved the lyrics while he and Peter Wood rewrote the music.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful that we never heard the original version. The dreamy vignette that Stewart composed was far more enjoyable than a song about a comedian who suffered from alcoholism and depression and eventually took his own life. Now, if only “Year of the Cat” had been the original version and Tony Hancock had recovered from his emotional illness, everything would have been perfect. Ah, if only … Presto. Instant smash in the top ten.