Cat Stevens

Simultaneous with the release of Cat Stevens' new album on A&M, Columbia has released a
pleasing first solo effort by Alun Davies, second guitarist on Cat's records from Mona Bone
Jakon on. Catch Bull is impeccably produced. Its musical contents are like those of Teaser
and the Firecat -- simple, short-phrased melodies and spare and vibrant arrangements.
There are, however, notable differences between Catch Bull and its predecess... More >

Reading the lyric of "The Boy With the Moon and Star on His Head," I was impressed by how unpretentiously it simulated early English poetry. But when I listened--a widely recommended method for that perception of songs--I noticed affectations like "the naked earth beneath us and the universe above," and winced at the next-to-last couplet, which ends with a weak word for the sake of a weak rhyme. Then I browsed in Norman Ault's anthology of Elizabethan lyrics. Forget it, Cat. (Grade: C)