Put on the headphones! Makes it much much better....

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat
She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat
While she looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the cat
Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the newborn day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat
Year of the cat

quote:

Originally posted by coloradohunter44:
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain

One of the most beautiful lyrics ever.

Sand in Your Shoes is my favorite song from Year of The Cat. This live version is great.

Yes, Year of the Cat is one of the songs that evokes a certain time for me. Listening to it on an AM radio in my bedroom, my mother preparing Thanksgiving dinner, 1977. Gone forever.

An Al Stewart song that didn't get the airplay, but I really like.

I always liked this one.

Thanks, I've been listening to him lately anyway and always a big fan.

quote:

Originally posted by coloradohunter44:


Put on the headphones! Makes it much much better....

Well, I did. My wife’s main gift to me this Christmas was a pair of Beats Studio Pro headphones. Spectacular! The electric guitar was by Tim Renwick, who played with a who’s who of British bands and artists, up to, and including Pink Floyd.

Alto sax by Phil Kenzie, who has toured or recorded with numerous bands and artists on both sises of the Atlantic. I learned he was fan voted one of the great sax players of all time, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know of him (I thought it might be David Sanborn).

Enjoyed listening

Here's a live version of my favorite, Roads to Moscow. I first heard it on the Cornell Univ station (I went to a nearby school) around 1972 but never got the full impact until the internet arrived and I read the back story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZdhPRPP0oM

They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red
Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze

In the footsteps of Napoleon the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
You'll never know, you'll never hear us
And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning roads lead to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming

Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home it will almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of the dream

I'm coming home, I'm coming home, now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train-wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time that I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break," I say they turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on forever

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Yes, Year of the Cat is one of the songs that evokes a certain time for me. Listening to it on an AM radio in my bedroom, my mother preparing Thanksgiving dinner, 1977. Gone forever.

I knew of the song then but the connection for this particular song was in 1985, working Town Patrol at Clark AFB in the Philippines.....yep, the song and lyrics fit what happened at that time for me.

Year of the Cat, the album, brings back memories from 1983, a great year for me.

Many excellent songs on the album. I will add to the list, Leave It and Nostradamus are among my favorites with On the Border. Mr. Stewart has a gift for telling a story.

For a real treat, look up Rhymes in Rooms. Al Stewart live with Peter White from McCabe's Guitar Shop in CA. Two guys, acoustic guitars and pure talent featuring many of the songs mentioned in this thread.

I misunderstood the lyrics for Year of the cat for such a long time..

He was just here in Houston, alas I missed it.



Not many I would go pay to see but he is one of them.

The rest of the show:
https://www.youtube.com/playli...ike-6j2_CpnWJM7-5P1v

Just saw last night that Al Stewart and Ambrosia are going to be in Biloxi in August. So close. But we aren't going. One of our Boxers is fighting DM and we won't leave him alone. Oh well. Boomer is more important.
This thread did spur me to get a couple Al Stewart albums on my phone. Some of his songs are very "cerebral" for lack of a better word. Roads to Moscow and On the Border come to mind.