50 Fun Facts About Cat Stevens

Which Cat Stevens song from Tea for the Tillerman was later a hit for Jimmy Cliff, Maxi Priest and Mr. Big?

Wild World peaked at number 11 in the US. He has called it his parting song to a girlfriend, built on a chord sequence common in Spanish music.

Which Cat Stevens song, written for a musical about the Russian Revolution, was a 1995 hit for Boyzone?

Father and Son began as a number for Revolussia, in which a boy wants to join the revolution against his farmer father's wishes. He sings the two roles in different registers.

Which 1931 hymn, with words by the children's author Eleanor Farjeon, gave Cat Stevens a US top-ten hit?

Morning Has Broken took only about 45 seconds to sing as a hymn, so his producer insisted it run to three minutes. Piano passages at the start, middle and end filled it out.

Which Cat Stevens song plays in the football film Remember the Titans and the later drama We Are Marshall?

Peace Train was his first US top-ten hit, reaching number seven in 1971. He once told a concert crowd he wrote it on a railway journey while thinking about Alfred Hitchcock.

Which 1971 cult film got a Cat Stevens soundtrack after Elton John dropped out and suggested him instead?

Harold and Maude uses nine of his songs, two of them written for it. Director Hal Ashby put the rough demos of those two straight into the film, which annoyed the singer.

What name did Cat Stevens adopt in 1978, the year after his religious conversion at a London mosque?

Yusuf Islam chose the Arabic form of Joseph as his first name. He identified with the Joseph story of a man bought and sold in the marketplace, much as he felt in the music business.

Which Ricky Gervais sitcom uses Cat Stevens's 'Tea for the Tillerman' as its closing theme tune?

Extras ends on the title song of his 1970 album, and Coldplay's Chris Martin performed a cover of it in an episode of the second series.

Which British singer took Cat Stevens's 'The First Cut Is the Deepest' to number one in the UK in 1977?

Rod Stewart held the top spot for four weeks, a decade after the teenage songwriter sold the song to P. P. Arnold for £30. Sheryl Crow made it a hit all over again in 2003.

Which song, which Cat Stevens calls the favourite of his old songs, named his 2012 stage musical?

Moonshadow came to him on holiday in Spain, standing at the water's edge on a bright night far from city streetlamps. The musical opened in Melbourne and closed four weeks early.

Which singer wrote her hit 'Anticipation' while waiting for Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date?

Carly Simon dashed the song off on guitar in about 15 minutes before he arrived. The pair were linked for seven months while sharing a producer, and he answered with 'Sweet Scarlet'.

Which Cat Stevens album shares its title with a children's book that he wrote and illustrated himself?

Teaser and the Firecat follows the top-hatted boy and his pet from the album cover as they try to put the fallen moon back in the sky. The book has been rare since the mid-1970s.

Which disease left the young pop star Cat Stevens close to death in hospital in the late 1960s?

Tuberculosis and a collapsed lung kept him recuperating for about a year. He took up meditation, turned vegetarian and wrote as many as 40 songs, many of which filled his later albums.

According to Cat Stevens, a girlfriend's remark about which of his features helped inspire his stage name?

His eyes reminded her of a cat's, he said. The bigger reason was commercial: he could not imagine anyone asking a record shop for a Steven Demetre Georgiou album.

What kind of family business did Cat Stevens grow up above, a short walk from London's Piccadilly Circus?

A restaurant called the Moulin Rouge was run by his parents on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the whole family worked in it. From the rooftop he listened to show tunes drifting over from Denmark Street.

Ingrid Wickman, the mother of Cat Stevens, came from which country, where he went to school for a time?

Sweden was home for a spell in his childhood, when he attended school in the town of Gävle and an uncle who painted encouraged his drawing. His other parent was a Greek Cypriot.

Which soul singer first recorded 'Another Saturday Night', a US number six hit for Cat Stevens in 1974?

Sam Cooke wrote it while touring England, stuck in a hotel that allowed no female guests. The cover equalled the best US singles chart peak of the British singer's career.

Which Greek thinker's teachings inspired Numbers, Cat Stevens's 1975 concept album set on the planet Polygor?

Pythagoras gave the album its subtitle, A Pythagorean Theory Tale. Its story has a castle machine sending the numbers one to nine out to the universe, and it left critics and fans confused.

Which American guitarist shared a 1967 UK tour bill with Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck?

Jimi Hendrix, an 18-year-old pop hitmaker and a crooner made an unlikely package bill. The headlining Walker Brothers officially disbanded once the tour was over.

Which Beatle jammed with Cat Stevens in 1976 after struggling with the odd timings of an Izitso song?

Ringo Starr had met him by chance and been invited down to the session. The jam they recorded instead has never been officially released, though bootleg copies circulate.

Remarks in 1989 about the fatwa against which novelist embroiled the former Cat Stevens in controversy?

Salman Rushdie had been targeted over his novel The Satanic Verses. The singer has since said he was cleverly framed by certain questions and never supported the fatwa.

Which future rock star played the flute on 'Katmandu', a track from Cat Stevens's 1970 album Mona Bone Jakon?

Peter Gabriel was then the singer of the young band Genesis. The two shared a stage again in 2003 at Nelson Mandela's 46664 concert, 33 years on.

Paul Samwell-Smith, who produced Cat Stevens's biggest albums, had been the bassist of which 1960s band?

The Yardbirds launched the guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page to fame. Their founding bassist turned producer and encouraged the stripped-down sound of the singer's 1970s records.

Which British beat group had an international hit in 1967 with the Cat Stevens song 'Here Comes My Baby'?

The Tremeloes picked the song up after its writer shelved his own recording. It became their first top-ten hit since losing lead singer Brian Poole the year before.

Which Wes Anderson film features the Cat Stevens recordings 'Here Comes My Baby' and 'The Wind'?

Rushmore uses one of his recordings from the 1960s and one from the 1970s. He gave permission for both almost 20 years after he walked away from pop music.

Which singer inducted Cat Stevens into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a 2014 ceremony in Brooklyn?

Art Garfunkel did the honours on the second attempt, as a first nomination in 2005 had been unsuccessful. The new inductee then performed three of his best-loved songs.

Which heavy metal singer sang alongside Cat Stevens at the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington?

Ozzy Osbourne performed one of his own hits at the same time as the folk singer played his, before The O'Jays followed with a number of their own.

In 2004 a flight carrying the former Cat Stevens was diverted to which US state, where he was detained?

Maine's Bangor airport received the diverted United Airlines flight after his name was flagged in mid-air. He was flown home the next day and believed he had been mistaken for another man.

Which country star recorded 'Where Do the Children Play?' in 2005 with the former Cat Stevens playing guitar?

Dolly Parton cut it for her album Those Were the Days. She was the person he had been flying to meet a year earlier when US officials turned him back.

To which South American country did Cat Stevens move in 1973 as a tax exile from the United Kingdom?

Brazil, and specifically Rio de Janeiro, became his base. He later donated the money he had saved in tax to UNESCO.

In which Caribbean country did Cat Stevens record most of his 1973 album Foreigner, with its side-long suite?

Jamaica gave him a studio in Kingston and a brand-new band for a record steeped in soul and R&B. The 18-minute suite took up the whole of side one.

Which single, released in the last days of 1966, gave Cat Stevens his highest UK chart placing?

Matthew and Son peaked at number two in February 1967 and named his debut album. Its words were inspired by his girlfriend of the time, who worked a lot.

Which Cat Stevens album, its title drawn from Zen Buddhism, spent three weeks at number one in the US?

Catch Bull at Four borrows its name from one of the Ten Bulls of Zen. It reached gold status in America in 15 days, his fastest seller there, and topped the Australian chart too.

Which record label relaunched Cat Stevens after he fought free of his contract with Decca's Deram?

Island Records boss Chris Blackwell offered him the chance to record whenever, with whomever and however he liked. Blackwell later called Tea for the Tillerman the best album the label had released.

Which Welsh guitarist accompanied Cat Stevens on record and on stage from 1970 until he left music in 1978?

Alun Davies was booked as a session player for Mona Bone Jakon and stayed on as a friend. A fellow perfectionist, he turned up at every sound check to make sure the equipment was ready.

Which UN agency benefited from the 1979 London charity concert that was Cat Stevens's last show for decades?

UNICEF was marking the International Year of the Child. He headlined at Wembley with his hair freshly shorn and an untrimmed beard, and closed with a finale written by his brother.

Whose decision to bring a guitar back into the house prompted Cat Stevens to return to pop music?

His son, a musician who records as Yoriyos, brought the instrument home and his dad began playing it. He had auctioned his own for charity when he walked away in 1979.

Which 2006 album was the first collection of new pop songs from the former Cat Stevens in 28 years?

An Other Cup credits him simply as Yusuf, with a cover label calling him the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens. He said the cup was there to be filled with whatever the listener wanted.

On holiday in which Moroccan city did Cat Stevens hear the call to prayer, explained to him as music for God?

Marrakesh gave him a jolt: he said he had heard of music for money, for fame and for personal power, but never of music for God.

Off which California beach city did Cat Stevens nearly drown in 1976, vowing to work for God if he was saved?

Malibu was where, by his account, a wave appeared straight after his plea and carried him back to shore. The scare sharpened a spiritual search that had already taken in tarot cards and astrology.

From a trip to which city did Cat Stevens's brother David bring him a copy of the Qur'an as a birthday gift?

Jerusalem was the unlikely source of the present. The singer said that, as a free spirit, he would never have picked the book up himself.

Which 1970 Cat Stevens single, written about his American girlfriend, metaphorically lays her to rest?

Lady D'Arbanville was Patti D'Arbanville, a teenage model who first heard the song about herself on the radio in New York. It gave him his third UK top-ten hit.

Which Cat Stevens song is heard in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous and in a 2023 Judy Blume film adaptation?

The Wind lasts well under two minutes and opens the album it comes from. It sits on the Almost Famous soundtrack album beside Elton John and Led Zeppelin.

Which song did Cat Stevens write for a 1971 cult film alongside 'If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out'?

Don't Be Shy and its companion were cut in San Francisco and never properly re-recorded. Neither reached one of his own albums until a second greatest hits set in 1984.

Which British singer duetted with Cat Stevens on his 1977 single '(Remember the Days of the) Old Schoolyard'?

Elkie Brooks sang on the record, though it is Linda Lewis who rides the playground merry-go-round with him in the video. Lewis had released her own version two years earlier.

Which American jazz musician did Cat Stevens later pay royalties after basing 'I Love My Dog' on his tune?

Yusef Lateef recorded 'The Plum Blossom' in 1961, and the debut single put new words to its music. The younger man later told him, sent a big cheque and now shares the writing credit.

Which stage musical did Cat Stevens say gave him a different view of life as a boy growing up in Soho?

West Side Story particularly affected him, and he went on to name its composer, Leonard Bernstein, among the writers of musicals he sought to emulate.

Cat Stevens took a one-year course at Hammersmith School of Art while considering which career?

Cartoonist was the plan, and the training was not wasted: his own artwork later appeared on the sleeves of his albums.

Which Cat Stevens song lent most of its title to the autobiography he published in 2025?

On the Road to Find Out, a 1970 album track about a spiritual search, became the memoir's name with a single word added at the front: Cat.

At which British festival did Cat Stevens make his first-ever appearance in June 2023, at the age of 74?

Glastonbury gave him its Pyramid Stage, where his set mixed several of his own hits with covers of Beatles songs.

Which Motown star's song 'As' did Cat Stevens choose as the one record to save on Desert Island Discs?

Stevie Wonder beat seven other discs to the top spot, one of them the castaway's own. His luxury item was a box of chocolate mints.