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August 19, 2009
E-mail a friendYOUNG VOICES
Yusuf Islam's
As the legend goes, the singer with the given name Steven Demetre Georgiou, better known as Cat Stevens, at the height of his fame, gave up music. The international celebrity, the hit songwriter, the musical visionary put down his guitar and spent the next 20 years reinventing himself. Stevens found his purpose in Islam, and changed his name to Yusuf Islam in accordance with his faith. Now, so many years later, he is making music again.
Along the way, the only mention of Islam's name, apart from steady rotation on oldies radio, came when he was detained by the FBI in 2004, in route to Nashville to record his first album since retiring from music in the late ‘70s. As it turned out, the FBI had their eye on someone with the name "Yousuf Islam," and the one-letter difference had escaped them. Islam was freed, but the experience would stay with him. Islam's new single, "Boots and Sand," is a recounting of the experience "as a joke," Islam said on Friday's program, "because that's what it ended up to be."
The single, which will be released in January, features Islam, along with his friends Paul McCartney and Dolly Parton, and will also have an accompanying music video directed by Jesse Dylan (son of Bob). The song was described by USA Today as "a twangy pop tune," and with so much star power behind it, one must imagine it can't possibly be bad. But then you get to thinking about it, and does a twangy, jokey pop song about being detained by the FBI really sound that good? It is true enough that only time will tell. The single may well be the next "Moonshadow," but my prediction is probably not.
The problem here, in my mind is that it's almost impossible to write a song that is both politically meaningful and a good song. It has been done before, by guys like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. More recently, Rage Against the Machine and NWA provided decent modern counterparts, but those songs were more about general feelings of discontent than specific incidents, and they were hardly the best songs in either group's catalogue. Then you get songs like Neil Young's unfortunate "Let's Impeach the President," Tom Waits' mediocre "Road to Peace" and Radiohead's subpar "Hail to the Thief" album, which prove, in my mind that protest songs are a great way to bring down an otherwise good record.
Sometimes political songs are bad because the songwriters are exploring new territory and leave their strengths behind. More often, though, it's because we like our music filled with metaphors, and when you abandon those and start singing about something you read in the paper, your song loses its art and becomes something like advertising.
Yusuf Islam is a talented songwriter, and his optimism about the future of Islam in regards to America and the West is truly inspiring. But can't we just get back to "Tea for the Tillerman"? That's a great song. It's a song that works. I have no idea what it's about, and that's just the way I like it.