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.
In honour of Chinese New Year celebrations today as we enter this new Year of the Tiger, here's the 1976 smash "Year of the Cat".
As a punk afficianado, is it wrong to say I really like this track - by one Al Stewart, an artist who would be considered a Punk-Antichrist?! ... Erm, guess not, cos I just did!
It's a damn fine song actually. The lyrics here, co-written by Peter Wood, are beautifully sculpted, with lines like ... "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 instrumentation, though at times overblown (the musos here can definitely play more then three chords!), builds upon a sumptuous irrestible melody!
The song tells the poetic tale of a traveller in far flung Asia - in a country where they turn back time - and his encounter with an exotic enigmatic hot hippy chick who "comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolour in the rain"!
After the fun of the inevitable one-night stand, he finds out next morning that he's missed the last f*cking bus out of town! ("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".)
Oh, the horror! He has to stay on and indulge in lots more carnality with this cutie ... "So you have to stay on, but the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day."
More than that, he's actually fallen for her but knows this holiday fling can't come to anything ... "You know sometime you're bound to leave her"
However, he'll sure enjoy it while it lasts! ... "But for now you're going to stay, in the year of the cat."
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.
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