Some readers may have guessed who this post is about by the title, others may be wondering what the connection is between Apple Cider, Sirens, and Nostradamus.
The words are all parts of song titles from one of my favorite artists from back in the 70s – Al Stewart.
I’ll get right to his music, playing my favorite Al song – Apple Cider Reconstitution:
According to the web site Songfacts, this song is Al’s fantasy about a couple making love on an abandoned railway station from his boyhood. Stewart was born in Glasgow in 1945 but his widowed mother moved to the South West of England when he was young. By 1952 they were living in a bungalow on a hill at Wilmcote in Warwickshire; the local station had been closed down and seemed overgrown and abandoned. He wrote the song some twenty years after leaving.
Here’s a bit of his bio from Wikipedia:
Stewart is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history. Stewart is best known for his 1976 hit single “Year of the Cat”, the title song from the platinum album of the same name. Though Year of the Cat and its 1978 platinum follow-up Time Passages brought Stewart his biggest worldwide commercial successes, earlier albums such as Past, Present and Future from 1973 are often seen as better examples of his intimate brand of historical folk-rock, a style to which he returned in later albums. Stewart is a key figure in British music and he appears throughout the musical folklore of the revivalist era. He played at the first-ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, knew Yoko Ono before she met John Lennon, shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon, and hosted at the Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s.
Apple Cider Reconstitution and The Sirens of Titan both come from the great 1975 album, Modern Times. The Sirens of Titan was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s novel of the same name.
One of Stewart’s most unusual song is Nostradamus, in which he sets many of Nostradamus’s prophecies to music. The famous London Fire, Napoleon, Hilter, and the Kennedy’s were all supposedly predicted by Nostradamus. Here is a video with the lyrics. It’s nearly a ten-minute song, with some great guitar parts:
*image from the Hobbledehoy
Thank you so much for introducing his wonderful music to me ❤
I love them all. Now I also got a new book added in my TBR 😄
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you are welcome. you may want to listen to his big hits – Year of the Cat and Time Passages…
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I will. Thanks 🤩
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He plays a pretty mean guitar, I’ll give him that.
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and a Scottish brogue gets me every time…
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If I recall he sang “I’m Not in Love” and “Time Passages”. I don’t recall the ones you have here but now that I hear them I like them too!! Great music!!
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I think I’m Not in Love is by the group 10cc, but Time Passages is one of his great songs… Glad you enjoyed them…
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Thanks for the clarification!!! I have never been great at matching artists to songs!!
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I cheated – I looked it up 🙂
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Well that’s the smart way!!
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I enjoyed these, Jim, especially the one about Nostradamus.
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it’s an interesting song, and some great guitar work…
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Al Stewart has a very distinctive voice. I hadn’t heard any of these three before, but I’m quite familiar with The Year of the Cat and Time Passages. I especially like the former.
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The Year of the Cat is another one of his great songs, as is Time Passages…
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A great artist to pick for a Monday residency on Borden’s Blather. His music certainly holds its own in an era filled with great folk artists like, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, and many more. I did not know that he had shared a flat with Paul Simon, but I can only imagine the music that come out of the place! Great post in the series, Jim!
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you mention some great artists there- fodder for future Music Mondays! glad you enjoyed it, Brad!
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You’ve really picked a winner this week, Jim! I’ve loved Al’s music since the beginning. This reminds me of seeing him at our uni’s folk club, around the time Past, Present, Future was released. A wonderful evening, and a really good era in British folk music – we had some stellar folk acts during my time there. This was up there with the best. I’d go for Time Passages as probably my favourite of his – it has featured in a few of my posts – but how do you really choose from a back catalogue like his?
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I was guessing you would be a fan of Al’s. And he does have a great body of work – and how fortunate you were to see him perform!
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A good guess! I have most of his albums, and Apple Music has filled in the gaps. He put on a great show, though it was a couple of years before his career really took off with Year Of The Cat.
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you knew him when!
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Not personally, just his music!
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you mean you and Al haven’t had a few pints together? 🙂
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Sadly, no. We probably wouldn’t frequent the same hostelries (think Electric Six 😉)…
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not sure what Electric Six is…
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It’s Google time! A band who had two hits here. One of the titles will give you a clue what I meant 😉
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I did a quick Google search and I saw mention of a band. I’ll read more about them 🙂
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They’re American but I think they had more success here. The videos for their two big hits are totally bonkers!
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are you a fan?
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No, but their videos make me laugh 😊
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look forward to checking them out!
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I just watched the two videos you are likely referring to – they are certainly a bit over the top!
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They’re very strange, aren’t they? The one with the flashing lights does make me laugh though. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Lincoln one had been banned over there!
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yes, the flashing lights were a nice addition to the video 🙂 I was able to watch the Lincoln video, so I guess no ban, at least now…
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I’d guess that many would be offended by that, and I’ve still no idea why they did it, unless it was a shock tactic aimed at getting publicity. The fact that it wasn’t a US hit suggests that didn’t work!
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I’m sure they did it for the shock value – it’s gotten a lot of views!
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It sure has, for a band who have never charted in the US!
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It’s always a big mystery how those charts work…
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I had forgotten Al Stewart. There is so much good music, and my brain capacity is not big enough to remember a lot of it. The Year of the Cat was very popular and one of the songs I remember fondly along with Time Passages. Great stuff! 😃
I wonder if 50 years from now today’s generation will be as proud of the music that is so popular today…uh probably. 😄
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He did hit it kind of big with Year of the Cat. And we are all probably biased towards the music we grew up with…
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wow, thanks for sharing each of these, jim. i was not familiar with him before and as you know by now, i love backstories
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and wikipedia is a great place to find backstories 🙂
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Didn’t know Al Stewart was from Glasgow, Jim. Sounds like a great place. Probably full of bampots. Cheers
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I guess bampots can be found everywhere…well maybe not in Govanhill…
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Full of them!
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