YEAR
OF THE CAT
AL STEWART
SONGWRITERS: PETER JOHN WOOD & AL STEWART
COUNTRY: SCOTLAND
ALBUM: YEAR OF THE CAT
LABEL: RCA VICTOR
GENRE: SOFT ROCK
YEAR:1976
"Year of the Cat"
is a single by Scottish singer-songwriter Al Stewart, released in July 1976.
The song is the title track of his 1976 album Year of the Cat, and was recorded
at Abbey Road Studios, London in January 1976 by engineer Alan Parsons. The
song reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1977. Although Stewart's
highest charting single on that chart was 1978's "Time Passages", "Year
of the Cat" has remained Stewart's signature recording, receiving regular airplay
on both classic rock and folk rock stations.
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 watercolor 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
Well, she looks at you so coolly
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 your choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drumbeat 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
Year of the cat.