Sometimes it can only be Cat Stevens. I love this “Katmandu.” It epitomizes the singer/songwriter’s wistful, searching, confiding, adventurous ethos.
Cat Stevens is not happy until you’ve dived into the devil’s lake, looked with a lantern into a dark cave and climbed Mt. Everest, tying up a prayer flag on the peak.
I consider the melody and rhythm of this song to be, to steal an adjective from the movie “Annie Hall,” “transplendent.” What guitar playing–meticulously plucked, vaguely Moorish, and always relying not on loudness but onclairty
However, the singer/songwriter is more than anything a raconteur. He takes you with him on his travels, both inner and outer, and throws down metaphors that awaken the senses.
His greatest lyrical strength is imagery:
“I sit beside the dark,
beneath the mire.
Cold, gray dusty day
The morning lake
drinks up the sky. . .”
“Katmandu,
I’ll soon be seeing you.
And your strange, bewildering
time will hold me down.”
–Sarah Torribio
Listen to more songs of the day curated by Sarah Torribio HERE
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