
The Unlikely Return of Cat Stevens - ScottBurson
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-return-of-cat-stevens
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mcguire
Wow. An article about Cat Stevens with no mention of Salman Rushdie.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oienjf0GK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oienjf0GK8)

~~~
boxerab
Yes, I found that quite strange too. I would not consider him actually
returned until he apologizes for his support for the death sentence on
Rushdie.

~~~
coldtea
Or, you know, whether he has returned or not (and dismissed his old beliefs or
got over them), is orthogonal to whether he has the courage (or even the will)
to apologize.

He can return, but don't feel comfortable to apologizing.

He can return, but feel like that's all behind and no apology is necessary, or
that that was done by a different person.

And several other possible cases -- a lot of which don't leave out the
possibility of having regretted it.

Like we can regret something in private and internally, the same holds true
for famous people, artists etc. They are not moral playthings that the public
has some right to demand of them public repentance and submission outside
their creative roles.

~~~
eastWestMath
The public certainly has the right to boycott an artist's work if they
committed a morally reprehensible action without any sign of remorse. The
public doesn't owe the artist anything.

~~~
sevensor
I don't think we should boycott his work, though. Certainly we don't owe _him_
anything, but the music he made as Cat Stevens is beautiful and it would be
sad for the world to lose it. We'd impoverish our culture if we cut out all
the art made by disagreeable people.

~~~
camus2
> I don't think we should boycott his work, though. Certainly we don't owe him
> anything, but the music he made as Cat Stevens is beautiful and it would be
> sad for the world to lose it. We'd impoverish our culture if we cut out all
> the art made by disagreeable people.

Calling Yusuf "Cat Stevens" Islam "disagreeable" is a euphemism, he is a bigot
and an religious extremist of the worse kind. He wants people to get killed
for their ideas although I bet he didn't even read Rushdie.

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nickbauman
Talent is judged at its height. Character is judged at its depth. If you write
a great novel and then write a bunch of mediocre ones you are judged by the
great one. If you help the poor, walk old ladies across the street, save a
person's life but molest a minor, you're judged as a pedophile.

I think I forgive him for _King of Trees_ alone. Anyone who wrote that can't
be that bad.

~~~
roceasta
Agree with your first paragraph but isn't it his _talent_ that you are judging
in the second (and therefore forgiveness is not applicable)?

Myself I'm starting to question the sense of judging people for their
'beliefs'. Two reasons: (1) most people deeply desire to gain social status
and consequently will profess anything to secure it if we judge them in this
way, (2) what are beliefs, anyhow? Do they even exist? If they do, why is it
necessary to 'believe' things (i.e. to try not to question or criticise
certain ideas, which is impossible in the long-term even if you stick your
fingers in your ears).

~~~
nickbauman
Beliefs are narratives (myths) people hold with the intent to enact. Even
atheists have beliefs. So I don't think they're easily dismissed. The story
you're enacting might be the most consequential thing about you.

As far as forgiveness of CS, well, whether I'm supposed to forgive someone or
not, I prefer forgiving because I want to live in a world where we can be
forgiven.

~~~
roceasta
Are all beliefs fictional? What's the difference, if any, between holding such
beliefs and attending a Harry Potter convention in costume?

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moomin
Contemporaries* of Cat Stevens, Richard and Linda Thompson also converted to
Islam. In their case, however they continued to make music. Notably the first
album produced after conversion is pretty much all about God and its cover art
is a picture of Richard wearing a turban.

I find it interesting to contrast the joy of a track like "Night Comes In"
with how humourless Cat Stevens became.

*although they never met to my knowledge

~~~
DataWorker
Richard Thompson converted to Sufi Islam, which might as well be a different
religion.

~~~
ern
If I'm not mistaken, Sufi Islam was pretty much mainstream Islam until the
Saudis started pushing Wahhabism with their petrodollars.

~~~
sparkzilla
...with _our_ petrodollars

~~~
macspoofing
No. __Their__ petrodollars. It's their oil. The demand for their oil doesn't
just come from America. In fact, America isn't even the largest individual
buyer of Saudi crude and constitutes a small percentage of total destination
of their crude.

~~~
chiph
I think he was referring to OPEC pricing oil exclusively in US dollars.

There is pressure by some oil-producing countries (notably Iran and Venezuela)
to sell in a currency other than USD for political reasons.

~~~
isr
Still doesn't make it "America's" money (which the previous poster was
implying). If anything, pricing the worlds energy in dollars (and thereby
ensuring that the global demand for $'s remains high) allows the US Fed to get
away with "printing money" as much as they do, without totally debasing their
currency.

It's interesting to note how Iraq's threat to start pricing oil in other
currencies (was it the Euro they mentioned?) is widely regarded as one of the
precursors to America's invasion and occupation.

So those "political reasons" you're alluding to work both ways.

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gkfasdfasdf
As a Muslim, I (and my kids) really enjoy the songs he created as Yusuf Islam.
I didn't even learn about Cat Stevens was until much later.

~~~
isr
+1 to that.

Music aside, as a counterpoint to what looks like some carefully choreographed
character assassination at the beginning of this thread, I'll add that I've
been impressed by the calmness of his demeanour and what comes across as an
open-hearted mindset, in the interviews I've seen of him (over the years).

The whole Rushdie thing was in one of the first big waves of Islamophobic in
Europe, where latent prejudices (perhaps on both sides) were laid bare. Thats
when I first heard the term "the Muslims are the new Jews of Europe".

When geo-politics became enmeshed (Iran, at a time when Iran was being widely
prepped as "world most evil actor" by mainstream press), then positions on all
sides became entrenched.

Not that I have any right to put words in his mouth, but I'm guessing thats
something Yusuf Islam also fell into. Certainly his stance on that doesn't
jive with everything I've heard him say, on many other topics, since.

Whats lost in this current retelling of the tale is how many (Christian)
writers condemned Rushdie for what they say as a callous and calculated bid to
insult for publicity's sake, and how many (Muslim) imam's went out of their
way to condem both Rushdie (for his insults), the fatwa (for its incitement to
commit a crime), and offered their own homes as a refuge.

All of that probably doesn't come across so clearly to Americans looking at
things from afar.

Feel free to downvote away, but I just thought I'd a slight measure of context
to whats looking like a very one-sided picture.

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you.

------
pg_bot
For those who've never heard it, I would suggest listening to his song "Father
and Son"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7c4VNGOgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7c4VNGOgU)

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rev_null
He performed at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, playing peace train
across from Ozzy Osborne playing crazy train.

------
ourmandave
First album came out in 1967, so I was surprised to learn he's only 69. That's
young-ish in Rolling Stones years.

I guess it was either tour again or run for US President.

~~~
kazinator
Born 1948, so he was 18 or 19.

Stones' first album was 1964; Jagger and Richards were 20 or 21, born in `43.

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ryan_w
I was first introduced to Cat Stevens through "Harold and Maude" and I fell in
love! "Don't Be Shy" never fails to comfort me.

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firasd
Nice description how of Cat Stevens set the soundtrack to the writer's teenage
years. I was listening to some music I haven't for a few years and it struck
such a chord with me that I realized I should appreciate musicians more on a
philosophical level for the joy, sorrow, and other feelings they evoke in us.
It's interesting to consider that this experience of having personal records,
especially listening to music in your headphones and having such a close
relationship with an artist, is such a relatively phenomenon in human
experience--barely a century old.

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drdeadringer
Last night I watched "Guardians Of The Galaxy 2", which featured a Cat Stevens
song I knew well.

I was surprised that such a song would be offered. I was, in fact, distracted
by the song lyrics against the movie dialogue due to this and I'm not
complaining about that. It was just so surprising, because Cat Stevens.

And I'm glad for it. The last I heard of him was getting stopped by TSA
Theatre because of his life-change in name and perhaps religion change over a
decade ago. Hearing his music in "pop culture" in "current year" is
refreshing.

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duncan_bayne
From "Peace Train" to clamouring for Rushdie to be burned alive is a pretty
big fall. I've never seen any evidence that he's changed his mind about his
support for the fatwah of death against Rushdie.

But then I occasionally enjoy some Rage Against The Machine, too, so I think
it's fair to say I don't filter my music based on the ideology of the
performer.

Maybe I should, though? Still thinking this one through.

 _Edited_ : fixed autocorrecto.

~~~
grzm
I'd say in general you're better off not looking for ideological purity or
perfection, here or in many places. We're human. We have foibles. We can, and
sometimes do, change. Sometimes we don't. Sure, there are some things that we
really can't — and shouldn't — tolerate. Yet if we only surround ourselves
with people and things that we completely agree with, that doesn't leave much
room for change, in ourselves or others. And no room to grow.

And I have both Cat Stevens and Rage in my collection. Some Rush, too.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Yeah.... the question is if you agree that there is a line to be drawn, where
do you draw it?

Also there's a matter of money. Orthogonal to the question of whether it's
possible to separate some art from the particularly awful philosophies of
their authors, there's the issue that paying them for that art is almost
certainly supporting the philosophy I find so abhorrent.

~~~
grzm
I don't think it's an easy question to answer, and one that I think will be
answered differently for each person. I do think right now there seems to be a
tendency to draw black and white lines too quickly and without really
understanding where other people are coming from. And I don't need to agree
with them to understand them.

I _do_ know that I don't hold the same opinions and beliefs of a lot of
people. It's unrealistic — and inhuman —that I would dissociate myself from
all of them.

People have many beliefs and weigh them differently. Trying to figure out a
single line or lines to separate myself from others is clearly not going to be
an easy task. I'd rather find things I have in common with people and build on
those. Then hopefully we'll be able to come to terms on those that we don't.
It seems hard to imagine that we could do the latter without at least some of
the former.

------
ScottBurson
My theory has always been that the Yusuf Islam thing was a reaction to a bad
acid trip. (Based on no evidence whatsoever, to be clear :-)

~~~
Clubber
There was a lot to it but the catalyst I believe is that he nearly drowned.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens)

Bad acid trips won't lead someone to change their life that drastically. (or
so I've heard, not that I would know anything about that sort of thing).

~~~
nes350
I'm not sure whether it's comparable, but Chris Squire from Yes spent months
"hibernating" in a hotel after a bad trip with homemade acid:

 _“I’d had lots of good acid trips prior to that. But I made the mistake of
trying some acid some friends of mine had homemade. That knocked me back, and
I did sort of hibernate in an apartment in Kensington and spent quite a few
months — maybe as much as a year — just playing bass.”_

Source: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11706204/Chris-
Sq...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11706204/Chris-Squire-bass-
guitarist-obituary.html)

------
jacquesm
Why all the association between Islam and death? Some paths are harder than
others and whatever path the man chose to walk it seems like he was conscious
all throughout it and quite possibly richer because of that.

You don't need an artists permission to enjoy their older work, even if they
themselves disavow it, especially not music. Ever since I was six I loved his
voice and it never bothered me that he tried another life. Better that and to
embrace it by choice than to live by default.

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grecy
After reading the Koran, he liked it so much he converted to Islam and changed
his name.

A bit later, he was denied entry into the United States. [1] The FBI diverted
the plane and had him escorted off, then sent him packing.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/usa](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/usa)

~~~
eastWestMath
Was that before or after the fatwa?

~~~
DataWorker
Well after.

~~~
eastWestMath
Seems like denying entry was pretty reasonable.

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faramarz
There's a good documentary/biography on Cat Stevens

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opt2cL5DTqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opt2cL5DTqA)

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katastic
He was bound to be reincarnated sooner or later.

