u/The-Tillerman

What is the best Yusuf album (secular or Islamic) in your opinion?

One of Cat's best if not his best song. Beautiful from start to finish.

From Buddha and the Chocolate Box.

Which part do you prefer, Sun or C79?

Most Cat fans haven't heard many of the songs on this album, and this is without a doubt Cat's least popular studio album. But there are some great deep cuts to be found here, IMO, and it featured The First Cut is the Deepest.

What do you think about this album and what are your favorites and least favorites from it?

Just wanted to share this cool find with all of you. So I was reading the liner notes for New Masters and found mentions of three unreleased songs from the 1960s.

The liner notes mention 3 songs not featured on the album being recorded:

• Sing!
• My Motorbike
• Younger Generation

According to the notes, these songs were wiped and never redone (doesn't say so for Younger Generation but we can assume the same).

Do you think that Yusuf himself or someone else still has a recording of any of these (or at least the lyrics)? What are your thoughts?

You can read the liner notes for yourself on Discogs. These are from the 1989 CD.

What do you think about this album and what are your favorites and least favorites from it?

From Matthew & Son (the album).

The original title for the album was The Dustbin Cried the Day the Dustman Died, referencing the album cover. The songs on this album included "Lady D Arbanville", "I Wish I Wish", "Katmandu", "Trouble", and more. What are your thoughts on this album?

For fun, below is an interview Cat did in 1970 for this album.

Q. How old are you now?

A. 21.

Q. We all know about ‘Matthew and Son, ‘I Love My Dog’ and...

A. ... ‘Here Comes My Baby’, ‘First Cut Is the Deepest’...

Q. Of course, I’d forgotten you wrote that.

A. Oh, a lot of people didn’t know I wrote that.

Q. And then, well not then, but about that time...

A. ... it started, I started to drift off.

Q. You went away for three months, to hospital.

A. Yeah. That was a result of the pressures of my life then. I was too hung up on what I was doing to worry about my health, and I just let it get to a head, and it got to the stage where another four weeks in the state I was in and I would have copped it. I went into hospital in September, 1968 and stayed three months. My lungs were really screwed up, really a mess.

Q. What did you do while you were away?

A. Oh, I took a load of records and books, and just got down to sorting myself out. I really got into meditation there, and that really helped a lot - that and Yoga.

Q. Do you still practice Yoga?

A. No, because I can’t get the peace I need in my flat. That’s why I’m looking for somewhere to live away from traffic and all the noise. I’d like to live by the Thames.

Q. What was so dissatisfying about your old way of life that made you want to change it?

A. Everything. The whole process I went through, being with a big anonymous company like Decca who are very into the Top 20 thing, very pop conscious. There are a lot of heavy pressures in that kind of set-up, all in a very fickle direction. In fact no direction at all apart from making instant large figures on paper.

There were the heavy agency figures who really didn’t know me. Like the minute I said I wanted to develop, that the stuff I was doing wasn’t really me or what I wanted to do, that didn’t interest them. What did interest them was how much I was getting that night and making sure they got half the bread before. That’s all they were worried about. And I just wanted a complete break from that because it just wasn’t the way I wanted to go. It was the way I had hoped it would go from the beginning, but it just didn’t work out that way.

Q. So how old is the material on "Mona Bone Jakon"?

A. Oh, very new. All written in the last three months or so.

Q. Well, what’s happened to all the songs you’ve obviously written in the past 18 months?

A. I’ve still got them, but the new songs are settled. Everything I wrote while I "as away was in a transitional period and reflects that and the doubts I was having. I wasn’t sure about my music, which was very frightening. You know, not believing in yourself is very scary. I was listening to too many people and that made me unsure of everything. I had to be sure about myself first, and I am now. I’m absolutely positive. It’s what I want, it’s what’ s happened on record, it’s the way it should be.

Q. The album is very much on your shoulders too. There are no huge orchestrations to hide away in, just you, your guitar or piano, and small units of sound.

A. That’s exactly right. It’s something that hasn’t come out before. I used to play things like this to people and they’d ask why I wasn’t doing it on record, so I had to do it this way. Now it’s all down to me. What we did was to record the songs simply, then discuss with Del Newman, the arranger, how they could be improved. Not just added to, but improved, and we were very lucky because he was into what we were doing. That was one of the things that got out of hand before. Because it was all done on the session with these clockwork players who just read the music, sat down and played it. They didn’t feel it, or care about it. Sessions in the old days used to scare the hell out of me. I used to get all knotted up days before, just being scared about it. And you just can’t work in that frame of mind. So we just hit it from the roots with this album. Just me and guitar and piano. It’s the only way really.

Q. So what happens now, after this album?

A. Well, there’s talk about film music. I was supposed to be writing for a movie last year, but it was one of the things the studio cancelled when that money panic happened in Hollywood.

Q. Do you have a set-working pattern, or do you literally get a turn on at odd moments which may result in a song?

A. No. I eat, sleep and drink my music. It really does take up all my thinking time. It could be titles, anything. Anytime, anywhere, that’s the pattern. And when it happens, you just have to get it down because it may be important.

I got into electronic music quite a bit during The Big Rest. It’s good because it’s slightly upside down, freaky, and is a side of me, which comes out there. Then there’s the sweet, classical side that I occasionally rest on. But electronic music is disturbing. Stockhausen is still pretty incredible, and there are some people in Norway doing interesting things. Italians have a great feel for making electronic instruments.

Q. Finally, do you miss anything at all about the old days?

A. Not one thing. Truly - not a thing. The whole mess was a REALLY BIG DRAG.