Al Stewart - Year of the cat

The version with the piano solo in the beginning.

Lyrics:

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 watercolour 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

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 the choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
BUt for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• year
• cat
• al
• stewart
• music
• video

[ralphb9]

Volta Bureau - Alley Cat

[coolram1952]

I remember seeing Al Stewart in concert playing this song and when it got to the sax solo about two-thirds of the way through all the lights on the stage went dark and the sax guy came out of nowhere with a single spot on him and just whaled away on the sax. Everybody roared. I remember this vividly 30+ years later, even though I really only listened to country music at the time. (Can't remember now how I ended up at an Al Stewart concert; must have been opening for Marshall Tucker.)

[eric251982]

Outstanding! I also love "Time Passages." Amazing production with the guitar and sax solos make the six minute songs feel like three, so I hit repeat over and over.

[marijnravels]

@coolram1952 true story.

[zebratangozebra]

One of the best music videos on YouTube

[mayabelle1107]

This is what I remember of 70's... Brilliant

[DeadJesus100]

its beautiful

[justinhendersonmusic]

I heard this song for the first time ever late one night while cat fishing with my dad as a kid.  I think it may have been the first time that I ever really fell in love with a song. Needless to say, I've been a music lover ever since.

[CUBAenTORONTO]

In a remote farm in Havana, Cuba, the year this song came out I waited every night to listen to this song to go to sleep. With a Russian Selena battery operated radio by my side. This music made me happy way back when even thought I did not understand a word back then. I have been in Canada for many years now. When I hear this song it brings me back good memories and reminds me how lucky I am to have left that shitty communist island and become the successful man I am. God bless this good music

[POINTBLANKaustralia]

indeed, songwriting of this calibre is a lost art and if u look at the way songs were "created" in the 60's and 70's modern music is like comparing a stick figure to a masterpiece, any songwriters born post 70's just aren't capable of doing this

[dycusburgkid]

Great writing....music and lyrics...there has got to be talent out there today....get off x box and learn to play an instrument. I got alot of girls playing piano in the dorm lounges....

[MPDCSCOUT135]

Top 25 Alltime Greatest hit!