Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” was one of the biggest hits of 1977. It was led by a compelling piano riff composed and performed by Peter Wood and featured a fabulous mid-song instrumental consisting of successive portions of strings. orchestrals, acoustic guitar played by Peter White, lead electric guitar played by Tim Renwick and finally a searing saxophone played by Phil Kenzie. With the record at 6:40, a single version had to be created which truncated the intro and instruments until 4:38.

The unusual lyrics portray a man visiting a distant and exotic country who meets a charming and sensual young woman. Inexplicably, she hugs him without even allowing him a chance to question her motives or the reason for her desires. The appearance and fragrance of her are intoxicating. He follows her until she is completely lost in a foreign land. She leads him to a clandestine romantic encounter. Waking up the next day, she realizes that his fellow travelers have left without him, tour bus and all. That plus a lost ticket means a much longer stay than he expected.

The song didn’t start like that.

Have you ever heard of a song called “Foot of the Stage”? I thought so. The reason you haven’t is because that was the original version of “Year of the Cat.” Al Stewart wrote the lyrics a decade earlier after seeing British comedian Tony Hancock perform in Bournemouth, England. This was not your average comedic performance from him. Hancock suffered from depression and it showed in his performance. As Stewart himself described it, “He came onstage and said ‘I don’t want to be here. I’m totally mad at my life. I’m a complete loser, this is stupid. I don’t want to know why I don’t end it all here.’ And they all laughed, because it was the character that he played… this kind of mediocre character. And I looked at him and thought, oh my God, he’s serious. This is real.”

This harrowing encounter prompted Stewart to write the first draft of what would later (after many mutations) become a top ten hit. But the first draft had lyrics like “Your tears fall like rain at the foot of the stage.” This was porteoso: Hancock committed suicide two years later from a drug overdose.

“Foot of the Stage” was never recorded. Stewart was reluctant to capitalize on Hancock’s death. He also realized that it wouldn’t help to write a song about a comedian that no one in America had ever heard of. But Stewart salvaged the song anyway, writing the lyrics to what is now “Year of the Cat.” His love for the movie “Casablanca” inspired this new version, which includes references to Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. He then kept the lyrics while he and Peter Wood rewrote the music.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful that we never heard the original version. Stewart’s dreamy vignette was so much more palatable than a song about a comedian who suffered from alcoholism and depression and ultimately took his own life. Now, if only “Year of the Cat” had been the original version and Tony Hancock had recovered from his emotional illness, everything would have been just rosy. Oh, if only… Done. Instant hit in the top ten.

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