With my most recent example being Gen Hoshino's（星野源）"Eureka" back on Monday, I've always been a fan of some of the more elegant piano pop pieces on both sides of the Pacific. Of course, this can go all the way back to the Piano Man, Billy Joel, himself. There's something about fingers dancing on the keys like a prima ballerina that evokes a lot of good and relaxing feelings.
With both Joel and Hoshino, I have my fair share of articles regarding them and their music. However, I've only known Scottish singer-songwriter Al Stewart for just a couple of songs. One is his "Time Passages" which I only know through K-Tel compilation record commercials, but the other one is his most well-known song "Year of the Cat" from July 1976. A tale of a tourist in a strange land being taken for a whirlwind romance by a lady of mystery, the next morning has him waking up next to the lady and realizing his tour bus has taken off without him. Well, no problems...he'll hang around in town with her for as long as possible.
Perhaps Stewart's setting was somewhere in Southeast Asia but from the soaring music, I've always thought it was somewhere in Eastern Europe or even Northern Europe. For some reason, there was always something quite Baltic about "Year of the Cat". I used to hear the song a fair bit on radio but never paid attention to how long it was...at nearly seven minutes. I also didn't realize that two-thirds of the song was instrumental with piano, strings and saxophone among other instruments joining in this most refined jam. Stewart's vocals and his music were that mesmerizing and it is the type of song that I would like to listen to when times are not all that rosy so that I can actually feel like that man in the strange land with the mystery woman. There's a goodly amount of hope and curiosity and wistfulness to splash about in here.
In Canada, "Year of the Cat" hit No. 3 on RPM while in the United States, it made it all the way to No. 8 on Billboard. Now, when this classic got out, what was at the Top 3 of Oricon on July 5th 1976?
1. Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yokosuka Story （横須賀ストーリー）
2. Daniel Boone -- Beautiful Sunday
3. Hiromi Ohta -- Akai High Heel（赤いハイヒール）
