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Al Stewart - Genie On A Table Top

Al Stewart - Genie On A Table Top Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Famous Last Words
Released: 1993

Genie On A Table Top Lyrics

Genie On A Table Top

Is this song really about Louis Armstrong? Apparently so, although when he introduced it at the S.P.A.C.E. music venue in Evanston, Illinois on June 3, 2012, Al said it was a one of only two happy songs he had ever written - which is surely an exaggeration. Rock songs are written in metaphors, he said, but this one is written entirely in similes.

Running to 3 minutes 47 seconds, the studio version is the 5^th track on his 1993 Famous Last Words album, and yes, Satchmo does get a brief mention towards the end. In a simile, of course.

Al Stewart - Time Passages

Al Stewart - Time Passages Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Time Passages
Released: 1978

Time Passages Lyrics

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into Time Passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
That there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play

Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Writer/s: DENIECE WILLIAMS, MAURICE WHITE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Time Passages

Al Stewart didn't like this song. Here's what he said in an interview with acousticstorm.com: "I'll tell you a funny story. I have never really cared for that song I know it was a big hit and all that. It was just one of those things where the record company asked me to write something that sounded like "Year Of The Cat" and we ended up doing that. But I didn't realize truly how bad a song it was until one day I was in an elevator and I was listening to what I thought was Muzak. About 30 seconds went by, and I finally began to recognize it and said to myself, 'This sounds pretty horrible.' Then, horror of horrors, I heard my voice come on, it actually was the record. So I'm thinking, 'Oh my God what have I done, this is terrible!' Hopefully in the last 25 years I've redeemed myself with other things, but "Time Passages" has just never thrilled me."

Stewart wrote this with the guitarist Peter White, who started touring as a member of Stewart's band in 1975 and collaborated with him for the next 20 years. In June 2010, Peter told us: "Al and I wrote this song together in 1977. I had come up with the electric piano riff which starts the song and together we put together the verse and the chorus, based on that recurring riff. There was no attempt or even conversation about writing anything similar to 'Year Of The Cat' which Al wrote with Peter Wood. The words and melody were mostly from Al and the musical bed and instrumental breaks were mostly my ideas and even if Al says he doesn't like the song, he has been playing it onstage consistently for the last 32 years! As soon as we added the saxophone in the studio there were obvious comparisons to YOTC. (The saxophonist was Phil Kenzie, who had also played the stellar solo on YOTC). But to say that the song was written to satisfy the record company - that was an issue that never even came up! And yes I'm very proud of this song, which still gets radio airplay every day!" (Learn more about Peter at www.peterwhite.com .)

Al Stewart - Old Admirals

Al Stewart - Old Admirals Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Past, Present And Future
Released: 1973

Old Admirals Lyrics

I can well recall the first time I ever put to sea
It was on the old 'Calcutta' in 1853
I was just a lad of fourteen years, a midshipman to be
To make my way in sailing ships of the Royal Navy

By the time that I was twenty-one I'd sailed the world around
Weathered storms in the China seas with the hatches battened down
And made my way by starlight off the coast of Newfoundland
And dined on beer and herrings while the waves blew all around

I live in retirement now
And through my window comes the sound of seagulls
And sets my mind remembering
The evening stars like memories sail far beyond the distant trees
Way out across the open seas
I hear them sing

Oh the wooden ships they turned to iron and the iron ships to steel
And shed their sails like autumn leaves with the turning of the wheel
And I was given captain's rank and soon took under me
The proudest ship that ever sailed for queen and country

Ah, the old queen she passed away with the new born century
And I received my calling up to the admiralty
The sands ran through the hourglass each day more rapidly
As we watched the growing of the fleets of high Germany

So at last the Great War blazed
I waited with the passing days
The call to arms that never came
Writing letters

I may be old now in your eyes
But all my years have made me wise
You don't see where the danger lies
Oh call me back, call me back

But the war it ran its course, they could find no use for me
And I live in the country now, grandchildren on my knee
And sometimes think in all this world the saddest thing to be
Old Admirals who feel the wind, and never put to sea

Now just like you I've sailed my dreams like ships across the sea
And some of them they've come on rocks, and some faced mutiny
And when they're sunken one by one I'll join that company
Old admirals who feel the wind, and never put to sea

Writer/s: STEWART, ALISTAIR IAN
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Old Admirals

Stewart wrote this after reading a biography of Admiral Lord Fisher, who resigned as First Sea Lord in 1915 after a dispute with Winston Churchill.

Fisher (1841-1920) is regarded by some as second only to Lord Nelson in British naval history. He was born in what was then Ceylon, the son of a British Army officer, enlisted in the Royal Navy aged just thirteen and rose to the position of First Sea Lord, retiring on his 70th birthday. Fisher was recalled after Prince Louis Battenberg (another of Stewart's heroes) was forced to resign at the outbreak of war in Europe on account of his German ancestry. Both these men appear in "Manuscript," the song which can be said to have started historical folk-rock.

The album version of "Old Admirals" runs to 5 minutes 54 seconds; it is also included on the 1996 unofficial fan club release Oceans Of Delphi, in which Stewart tells his audience this was the most uncommercial song possible being about the rise of British sea power immediately prior to the First World War. Fisher, he added, was utterly devoted to the British Empire, and was cast aside and forgotten at the end of his life; the song was an extended metaphor for growing old and unwanted.
Although the first part of this statement is undoubtedly true, Fisher was anything but forgotten in old age. He resigned in May 1915 after a dispute with Churchill, but soon found another post, and on his death he was given an illustrious funeral at Westminster Abbey.
Stewart said on this live recording that "Old Admirals" was probably his personal favorite of the songs he had ever written (up until that time), but he has said the same thing about "Manuscript," the first song he wrote in this new genré, and which bears an even stronger metaphor.

See Admiral Lord Fisher in Song Images.

Al Stewart - Shah Of Shahs

Al Stewart - Shah Of Shahs Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Sparks of Ancient Light
Released: 2008

Shah Of Shahs Lyrics

Shah Of Shahs

The book Shah Of Shahs by Ryszard KapuŠ›ciŠ„ski was first published in Polish in 1982. Later it was translated into English. The Shah concerned is Mohammad Rezā Shāh PahlavÄ« (1919-80), the last King of Persia. The Shah was both a secular Moslem and a progressive pro-Western leader who did much for his people, including for women's rights, but there was an iron fist inside the velvet glove, and in February 1979 his government was overthrown to be replaced by an Islamic theocracy whose first ruler, the Ayatollah Khomeini, returned from exile, which for the Iranian people was a case of out of the frying pan into the fire, although after Khomeini's death in 1989, the country was liberalized to some extent, and brought under the rule of law.

When the Shah was overthrown he fled to Egypt, but he was living on borrowed time, not because of his political enemies, but because of a rare blood cancer. In October 1979, he was admitted reluctantly to the United States by then President Carter for urgent medical treatment. It is believed this act of humanity led to the storming of the US embassy in Tehran which resulted in over fifty Americans being held prisoner for 444 days by Islamist students, by which time the Shah was long dead.

The last ruler of the House of Pavlavi died in Egypt on July 27, 1960, and was buried in the Al-Rifa'i Mosque, Cairo. The multilingual Shah wrote a personal account of his reign and accomplishments; Réponse Á  l'histoire was published posthumously in French, and translated into English was published as Answer To History by Stein & Day in 1980.

Running to around 5 minutes, 5 seconds, Al Stewart's morose song sums up the way the Shah must have felt as he watched his life's achievements destroyed and was forced to flee for his life. (thanks, Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2)

Al Stewart - Year of the Cat

Al Stewart - Year of the Cat Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Year Of The Cat
Released: 1976

Year of the Cat Lyrics

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the Year of the Cat

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat

While she looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the cat

Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat

Year of the cat

Writer/s: WOOD, PETER / STEWART, AL
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., CARLIN AMERICA INC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Year of the Cat

Stewart is Scottish born, and has been recording since 1967. His songs have lots of very catchy tunes, many historical and political themes, and lots of clever lyrics that seem to paint pictures in your mind. He was once described as the chief scribe of English music. (thanks, steve - worcester, England)

Many of the lyrics were inspired by the 1942 Humphrey Bogart movie Casablanca.

The title comes from Vietnamese astrology. The Year of the Cat is also called the Year of the Rabbit... It comes every 12 Years and it is supposed to be a stress free year. The Last Year of the Cat was 1999. It was also the Year of the Cat in 1975, the year before this came out. But, there is no guarantee that the Year of the Cat that Stewart sang about was 1975, since it could have been 1963, 1951,1939, 1927 and so forth. We'll look forward to the next one in 2011. (thanks, Brian - Grand Forks, ND)

Alan Parsons produced the album. Parsons was a prominent recording engineer long before going on to his own solo success. He had previously worked on the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon.

This started off as a completely different song. Al Stewart originally wrote the lyrics after seeing the British comedian Tony Hancock in Bournemouth, England in 1966. Hancock was very depressed, and the show was a disaster, with the comedian going to the front of the stage and addressing the audience directly and pouring out his soul. In Al Stewart: The True Life Adventures of a Folk Rock Troubadour , Stewart is quoted: "He came on stage and he said 'I don't want to be here. I'm just totally pissed off with my life. I'm a complete loser, this is stupid. I don't know why I don't just end it all right here.' And they all laughed, because is was the character he played... this sort of down-and-out character. And I looked at him and I thought, Oh my god, He means it. This is for real." Hancock killed himself in 1968 with a drug overdose. Stewart's song was originally titled "Foot Of The Stage," with the chorus, "Your tears fall down like rain at the foot of the stage.
Many of Stewart's songs have alternate lyrics, and he wasn't happy with the Hancock-inspired words, as he didn't want to take advantage of the man's tragedy and besides, no one in America knew who Hancock was. Al re-wrote the lyrics as "Year Of The Cat," which he delivered to Parsons. (thanks, mike - Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

Al Stewart - Elvis at the Wheel

Al Stewart - Elvis at the Wheel Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Sparks of Ancient Light
Released: 2008

Elvis at the Wheel Lyrics

Elvis at the Wheel Song Chart

Al told his audience that the song is based on a weird time in the life of Elvis during the '60s rock revolution. The cloud incident that the song relates is true. It led Elvis to an intense religious experience and to his serious contemplation of becoming a Christian monk - an idea which perturbed his "entourage." Al, in fact, read of it in Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. (thanks, Robert - Long Beach, CA)

The lyrics relay how Elvis once saw a vision of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the clouds during a drive through Arizona:

He's looking up
The sky has something to reveal

It is the face of Joseph Stalin
That is formed by drifting clouds

A music video, directed by Bruce D. Northey, was filmed in Arizona in 2013. It closely follows the story presented in the lyrics, with Stewart visiting an independent bookstore and reading the story of Elvis's vision in Careless Love.