'Father And Son' is for those people who can't break loose." ![]() Responding to the interviewer from Disc, he said, "I've never really understood my father, but he always let me do whatever I wanted-he let me go. Interviewed soon after the release of "Father and Son", Stevens was asked if the song was autobiographical. In 1970 it was only put on the B-side of Stevens' single " Moon Shadow" (Island Records). "Father and Son" received substantial airplay on progressive rock and album-oriented rock radio formats, and played a key role in establishing Stevens as a new voice worthy of attention. After a year-long period of convalescence in the hospital and a collapsed lung, the project was shelved, but "Father and Son" remained, now in a broader context that reflected not just the societal conflict of Stevens' time, but also captured the impulses of older and younger generations in general. He was close to death at the time of his admittance to the King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst, West Sussex. The musical project faded away when Stevens contracted tuberculosis in 1969. Problems playing this file? See media help.Ĭat Stevens originally wrote "Father and Son" as part of a proposed musical project starring Nigel Hawthorne, called Revolussia, that was set during the Russian Revolution, and could also have become a film the song was about a boy who wanted to join the revolution against the wishes of his conservative farmer father. 408 on Rolling Stone's " Top 500 Best Songs of All Time". Additionally, there are backing vocals provided by Stevens' guitarist and friend Alun Davies beginning mid-song, singing an unusual chorus of simple refrains. Stevens sings in a deeper register for the father's lines, while using a higher one for those of the son. The song frames a heartbreaking exchange between a father not understanding a son's desire to break away and shape a new life, and the son who cannot really explain himself but knows that it is time for him to seek his own destiny. ![]() " Father and Son" is a popular song written and performed by English singer-songwriter Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens) on his 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman.
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