Australian singles charts:
Year of the Cat entered the Kent Music Report on 21 February 1977 and peaked at #13. The song was #79 on the Top 100 of 1977.
Album:
The song is on Year of the Cat which entered the Kent Music Report album charts on 21 March 1977 and peaked at #10.
Songwriters:
Al Stewart, Peter Wood
Producer:
Alan Parsons
Record label of Australian release:
RCA Victor
BONUS CLIP BELOW: Al Stewart talks about The Year of Cat
Wikipedia:
Co-written by Peter Wood, Year of the Cat is a narrative song written in the second person whose protagonist, a tourist, is visiting an exotic market when a mysterious silk-clad woman appears and takes him away for a gauzy romantic adventure. On waking the next day beside her, the tourist notes that his tour bus has left without him, and decides to stay where he is for the time being.
In the Vietnamese zodiac, the Cat is one of the twelve signs. At the time of the song’s release, the most recent Year of the Cat had been 11 February 1975 to 30 January 1976; thus, the song was written and recorded in the Vietnamese Year of the Cat.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Cat_(song)
Al Stewart said Year of the Cat came about “in a really strange way”. You’ll enjoy his explanation HERE.
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 song is also on our Spotify playlist Bang a Gong – the 70s
BONUS CLIP:
Al Stewart talks about The Year of Cat
New to Bang a Gong? Click HERE to learn more about us.