How do you feel about Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam
Quite honestly I feel very conflicted about this dude and I could use a little bit of guidance. I’ve always liked his music but I’m just not sure what to think about him.
I started listening to his music in the 80s, when I was a teenager. I found his music to be soothing and relaxing. And he sang about things I believed in, like peace, and being in a good relationship with someone. Songs like Peace Train and Wild World just made me feel good. It was idealistic folk music, mostly, but I was an idealist person. But then, after he converted to Islam, I saw him on TV talking about Salman Rushdie. He actually said that he should be burned alive. I saw this on live television. You can find it on YouTube. He later said that he was joking, or he was taken out of context, or some combination. But it didn’t seem like that to me. He’s also been accused of donating money to either the Hamas or an anti-Israel organization, and sort of half way admitted this.
But if you listen to his current music, it’s the same kind of folk music about peace and love. I haven’t listened to his last few albums, but right now, at this moment, I’m listening to an album from 2006. It’s actually really good. It’s been a long time since he expressed any of his radical ideas, so maybe he doesn’t have those views anymore. Maybe I should take his music at face value and say, this isn’t radical, it’s the same nice folk music as before, he just sounds a lot older. One of the songs on this album is “Don’t let me be misunderstood:
“Im just a souls whose intentions are good, please don’t let me be misunderstood”.
“But sometimes I find myself regretting some foolish thing I’ve done”.