How frustration with The Beatles pushed Cat Stevens to launch his own career
The amount of musicians who followed their dreams because of The Beatles seems utterly countless. While some discovered their music by growing up as a part of similar scenes, others caught their first glimpse when they performed their famous set on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, no matter their route to the Fab Four, each of them speaks to the same kind of magic that lit up their soul like no other.
Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islams, was no different. Like many, Islams’ first exposure to The Beatles led him on an almost immediate path to artistic discovery. He started playing the guitar and taking it more seriously as a genuine craft, attempting to learn as many chords as he could find within the Liverpudlian quartets’ repertoire. In his world, learning these songs was the entry requirement, and if he could do that, he could make it.
The beauty of utilising the band as a major influence when first starting out is that many of their songs follow simple song structures. In the beginning, this was the main aspect of their appeal, as most of their songs could be easily picked up by other players, all while underscoring just as simple and easy-to-learn melodies that made the music both memorable and accessible.
Islam became a protégé like many others, trying to learn their techniques as a way to improve his own skills. However, over time, he grew increasingly frustrated, finding it too difficult to fully grasp their style. This frustration led him on a desperate journey to develop his own approach after feeling disheartened by his inability to master The Beatles’ music.
Discussing this with SongwriterUniverse in 2019, Islams recalled the moment he became influenced by the band and how they ultimately set him on a distinctive path, saying, “Then along came The Beatles, and that changed everything. What happened was I got myself a guitar, a really cheap one, but it was good enough.”
He continued: “And I started trying to play and learning the chords, like where you put your fingers and all that. That was hard, and playing other people’s songs was even harder. So it was just a fast track for me to say, ‘OK, I’ll just write my own songs.’ In a way, that was it … it was just kind of a necessity. In order to play something, I needed to make it up myself.”
Islam’s separate journey to self-discovery ultimately established him as one of the greatest artists of his time, earning a full circle moment when the members of The Beatles themselves, namely George Harrison, commended him as someone who incidentally had a major impact on them. While most attempt to stick with the band, learning their songs as a foundation for their own growth, Islams made the bold decision to take a more individualistic approach, no matter the consequences.
This also meant he could inject his personal touch into his music, relying solely on personal experience and internal authenticity to bring his songs to life. While Harrison notes Islams’ immense emotionality as one of his defining qualities, he also adopted a certain delicacy that made his music feel far more unique than if he had attempted to imitate another artist.
