Cat Stevens
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50 free Cat Stevens trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few pop careers have had as many chapters as that of Cat Stevens. He was a teenage hitmaker in Swinging London, then a near-fatal illness turned him into one of the defining singer-songwriters of the early 1970s. At the height of his fame he walked away from the music business, and stayed away for the better part of three decades. This quiz follows the whole journey. It covers the songs everyone knows and the stories behind them, the albums from his first singles to Tea for the Tillerman and beyond, the musicians and producers who shaped his sound, the films and television shows that borrowed his music, and the faith, family and second act that followed. It is written for anyone who grew up with the records, and for newer listeners who met the songs through a film soundtrack or a cover version. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish with a few stories worth retelling.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Cat Stevens song from Tea for the Tillerman was later a hit for Jimmy Cliff, Maxi Priest and Mr. Big?
Wild World
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.
Q 02Which Cat Stevens song, written for a musical about the Russian Revolution, was a 1995 hit for Boyzone?
Father and Son
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.
Q 03Which 1931 hymn, with words by the children's author Eleanor Farjeon, gave Cat Stevens a US top-ten hit?
Morning Has Broken
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.
Q 04Which Cat Stevens song plays in the football film Remember the Titans and the later drama We Are Marshall?
Peace Train
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.
Q 05Which 1971 cult film got a Cat Stevens soundtrack after Elton John dropped out and suggested him instead?
Harold and Maude
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.
Q 06What name did Cat Stevens adopt in 1978, the year after his religious conversion at a London mosque?
Yusuf Islam
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.
Q 07Which Ricky Gervais sitcom uses Cat Stevens's 'Tea for the Tillerman' as its closing theme tune?
Extras
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.
Q 08Which British singer took Cat Stevens's 'The First Cut Is the Deepest' to number one in the UK in 1977?
Rod Stewart
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.
Q 09Which song, which Cat Stevens calls the favourite of his old songs, named his 2012 stage musical?
Moonshadow
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.
Q 10Which singer wrote her hit 'Anticipation' while waiting for Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date?
Carly Simon
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'.
Q 11Which Cat Stevens album shares its title with a children's book that he wrote and illustrated himself?
Teaser and the Firecat
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.
Q 12Which disease left the young pop star Cat Stevens close to death in hospital in the late 1960s?
Tuberculosis
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.
Q 13According to Cat Stevens, a girlfriend's remark about which of his features helped inspire his stage name?
His eyes
Q 21Which future rock star played the flute on 'Katmandu', a track from Cat Stevens's 1970 album Mona Bone Jakon?
Peter Gabriel
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.
Q 22Paul Samwell-Smith, who produced Cat Stevens's biggest albums, had been the bassist of which 1960s band?
The Yardbirds
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.
Q 23Which British beat group had an international hit in 1967 with the Cat Stevens song 'Here Comes My Baby'?
The Tremeloes
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.
Q 14What kind of family business did Cat Stevens grow up above, a short walk from London's Piccadilly Circus?
A restaurant
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.
Q 15Ingrid Wickman, the mother of Cat Stevens, came from which country, where he went to school for a time?
Sweden
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.
Q 16Which soul singer first recorded 'Another Saturday Night', a US number six hit for Cat Stevens in 1974?
Sam Cooke
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.
Q 17Which Greek thinker's teachings inspired Numbers, Cat Stevens's 1975 concept album set on the planet Polygor?
Pythagoras
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.
Q 18Which American guitarist shared a 1967 UK tour bill with Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck?
Jimi Hendrix
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.
Q 19Which Beatle jammed with Cat Stevens in 1976 after struggling with the odd timings of an Izitso song?
Ringo Starr
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.
Q 20Remarks in 1989 about the fatwa against which novelist embroiled the former Cat Stevens in controversy?
Salman Rushdie
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.
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.
Q 24Which Wes Anderson film features the Cat Stevens recordings 'Here Comes My Baby' and 'The Wind'?
Rushmore
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.
Q 25Which singer inducted Cat Stevens into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a 2014 ceremony in Brooklyn?
Art Garfunkel
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.
Q 26Which heavy metal singer sang alongside Cat Stevens at the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington?
Ozzy Osbourne
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.
Q 27In 2004 a flight carrying the former Cat Stevens was diverted to which US state, where he was detained?
Maine
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.
Q 28Which country star recorded 'Where Do the Children Play?' in 2005 with the former Cat Stevens playing guitar?
Dolly Parton
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.
Q 29To which South American country did Cat Stevens move in 1973 as a tax exile from the United Kingdom?
Brazil
Brazil, and specifically Rio de Janeiro, became his base. He later donated the money he had saved in tax to UNESCO.
Q 30In which Caribbean country did Cat Stevens record most of his 1973 album Foreigner, with its side-long suite?
Jamaica
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.