# The music of Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 11, 2022, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343 "2022-12-11T17:53:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/41 "2022-12-12T18:26:05Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Did Yusuf’s comments on Islam have any affect on the attacker? Who knows, but I won’t give him a pass. Did the comments made by a washed-up musician, in 1989, influence a guy born ten years later into attacking someone thirty years later? I’m going to go with “no.” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/42 "2022-12-12T21:26:35Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m going to go with “no.” You do you. Yusuf’s comments were just one of many screaming for Rushdie’s death. So instead of being the sole cause, he’s just a member of the chorus. But if he had gone against the fatwa back in the day, maybe people would have listened. He wasn’t “washed up” then. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/43 "2022-12-12T21:35:15Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But if he had gone against the fatwa back in the day, maybe people would have listened. He wasn’t “washed up” then. The fatwa happened in 1989, more than ten years after he stopped recording music. That’s pretty well pas the prime of his celebrity. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/44 "2022-12-12T22:34:23Z")
> [@Jaycat.again](#): > > I wonder how many Dopers who excoriate Donald Trump for inciting violence are willing to give Yusuf Islam a pass? > > Hey, Charles Manson had a recording career too, you know. If Trump (or Manson) made music that I deemed worth listening to, then I would listen to it. (I think that answers the question you meant to ask) mmm ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/45 "2022-12-12T23:19:35Z")
Don’t know what it is about crescent moons on old outhouse doors, but indeed “Moonshitter, Moonshitter” was as fine a paean to that phenomenon as any. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/46 "2022-12-21T13:58:05Z")
I’ve been a fan since my teens. “Sitting” is my favorite song, but I need to go over his discography again. Back in 71, “Harold and Maude” came out with his music, and that same year in the equally great “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”, you had Leonard Cohen. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/47 "2023-06-18T18:55:21Z")
New album released this week. King of a Land. I enjoyed it a lot - the closest to his 70s style in sound and lyrics of all his comeback work. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343/48 "2023-06-19T13:16:41Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > > [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > > > > [@california\_jobcase](#): > > > > > > Way back when my sister wore the groove smooth on her “Tea For the Tillerman” album, I concluded he had a creepy old man voice. I figure he’s probably aged into it. > > > > Yeah, I always felt his singing voice was 10 miles of really bad road. > > Another opinion I cannot get behind. I’ve always thought the opposite. > > 10 miles of newly paved concrete, I guess you could call it. What’s up, my username is from a Cat Stevens song so I figured I should chime in. I agree that he seems to have an old man voice. Well, either that or his songs just seem like they’d be suited for an old man singing them. But I disagree that his old man voice sounds creepy or bad. I find his music soothing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-of-yusuf-islam-aka-cat-stevens/976343.md?page=2)