Mexico-Mad Cat & His First Musical

So it’s all down to Mexico for Cat Stevens - early next year will find Cat, in the land of the Cisco Kid and Pancho, basking in the sunshine on some chili-ridden hacienda, searching for (and finding, I hope) material for his first stage musical. Why Mexico? I’ll explain - but first, what it’s all about.

A young Mexican boy gets fed up with his dreary life and his even drearier parents. So he decides to go North, to find a new life with plenty of fun, excitement, and all the rest of it - and he does, in fact, find all this, and more besides, by joining up with a gang of Mexican bandidos (or whatever they call bandits over there), and becoming a sort of latter-day Robin Hood. Anyway, tons of violence and songs, ending up with our hero meeting and of course falling in love with, one of your actual Governor’s daughters. Cat hasn’t yet worked out how the story is going to end - but basically, that’s it.

"I really want to write a musical," said Cat, "and now I’m in the right frame of mind to do it - and because of this, I think I should be able to write some goods songs for it. And it has to be about Mexico. I’m fanatically interested in that country at the moment - well I always have been, ever since I was a kid. And this musical gives me a good excuse to actually go over there and absorb some of the atmosphere. I don’t know what it is, but something’s always drawn me to Mexico - perhaps it has to do with the music and the excitement of the place. I think I must have some Spanish blood in me or something. You know, when I was a kid, I used to do a sort of Spanish dancing thing, and I had a waiter’s jacket which had been dyed red, and high-heeled boots, and other bits of home-made gear - and I really used to dig this. In fact at the moment I’m recording a new singer who is part Mexican - and he has a big black moustache and everything. I dig anything to do with Mexico - but not modern Mexico. When I go there next year, I shall live with a Mexican peasant family, somewhere out of town, and try to adapt myself to their way of life - become one of them, in fact. Wear their clothes, ride a horse - I love riding - and eat the same sort of food as they eat. Up to a certain point, anyway. You know, they make a sort of pasta over there that contains flies - I don’t think I’ll bother to eat any of that. I’ll probably stop off at San Francisco on the way over; to see what it’s all about. I think it’s a great scene - everything is really bubbling at the moment, and I’m Inspired by the whole thing. It’s like the music world is becoming one big happy family, and I think this San Francisco scene is bringing Britain and the States together - popwise, anyway - and making it so that one can be at home in both countries. It’s a pity they can’t have cheap excursions so that one could commute between the two places. I’d like to go over to San Francisco without any money at all, and then try to get to Mexico from there. But I don’t think I have the courage to do that. I was going to go over this summer, but I won’t be able to now. But I shall definitely be going there early next year. The thing is that I can’t plan anything - well. I don’t want to really. I tried to plan my life once, but I failed miserably. I think the answer is to feel your way around life, and do what you want to do when you feel like doing it. "I’ve learnt a lot since that first record of mine, a year ago, and I really feel now that the cards are on my side. I’m not sure whether that new disc of mine. "A Bad Night" will go very far or not. Perhaps it’s a bit uncommercial. Anyway. I’m sticking to my guns about it - it’s a change from what I’ve been doing so far. My next record will be a complete change, it’s very classical, and I think it will be quite a surprise."

[Record Mirror, 19.08.1967]