51. Wild World by Yusuf / Cat Stevens

"Wild World" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens

Written by Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Produced by Paul Samwell-Smith
Released on Tea for the Tillerman (November 23, 1970)
Released as a single September 1970
Peaked at #11 on Billboard Hot 100
amazon iTunes spotify

After 18 months, 50 blog posts, over 38,000 words, and numerous stops, starts, and calls from my mom about typos she found (thanks mom!), I'm now halfway done with this project. It has taken me much longer than I expected, but based on how much I've learned about myself, it has probably been worth it, and I will continue. I'm also hoping that the next 50 won't take me a year and a half to complete.

I now know that I'm not a writer. Like so many things in my life, I imagine writing in a somewhat romantic fashion. It feels like something I want to do, but when it comes time to actually write, I don't enjoy it enough. It's similar to how I feel about music. As much as I love music, I don't think I could ever be a music critic or a musician. I like playing music and thinking about music, but I don't love the work that would go into becoming great at either of those things.

I also do not have a great history of following through and completing long range tasks and goals. I knew this project would be ambitious and big, but part of me thought it would be easier and that I would be able to keep myself motivated enough to do it. My hope now is that things will get easier as I get further along the list. (We'll see...)

Like some other songs on this list, "Wild World" is a song that I share with my mother. She owned and loved this album long before I was around. I don't remember when I first heard this song, but one of my earliest memories is with my friend Dan Loomis. Dan is now a successful jazz bassist out of New York. I first knew him as a tall middle schooler with curly hair who played the guitar. He had a Cat Stevens song book that he would sometimes play from. I remember hearing him sing "Wild World" and enjoying it. He probably played some other Cat Stevens tunes too, but "Wild World" is the one that stuck with me.

The other song I remember him playing on his guitar around that time was the Indigo Girls cover of "Romeo and Juliet." (Dire Straits' original version of that song is one of many songs that almost made this list.) When I heard him playing it for a few of his friends, I exclaimed, "Oh, that's a Dire Straits song." Someone wisely shushed me, and I just silently listened to the rest of the song, as I should have been doing all along. If you are interested in hearing some really cool jazz covers of David Bowie songs (which you absolutely should be), and just other cool jazz stuff, check out his band The Wee Trio.

Alright, back to the song at hand. "Wild World" is a breakup song. It's sweet and sad and hopeful. It's also a song about innocence. Despite the fact that Yusuf wrote this for his ex-lover Patti D'Arbanville, it feels like it was written for me. I was a sheltered child. I played by the rules, and enjoyed spending the majority of my school age years attending a small religious private school. Going to college (20 minutes away from home) felt like a very wild world for me. There was so much that I was not prepared for.

I remember being in high school, and really thinking that I had everything figured out. I genuinely wondered to myself what more there was for me to learn. I knew the path I was on, and I wasn't sure I could deviate from it, but I really started to wonder if college was really all that necessary.

Looking back there are lots of things I've gotten wrong in my life, but this was the big one. Everyday of those five years in college, I learned more and more about how little I actually knew. Sometimes it was in the classroom, but more often it was outside with my friends, at my part time jobs, in the books I was reading, and in the life I was trying to live. I still sit here wondering, when am I actually going to really figure things out? When are things going to start making more sense? When am I actually going to feel like I've started to answer all those questions I didn't know existed when I was in high school?

Sometimes I miss that feeling of invincibility. I know it's a feeling that was never based in reality, but sometimes I just want to crawl back into that bubble, that protective shell, and dream of what life could mean without all those pesky unanswered questions. (Based upon what I've seen of reality television, there are plenty of people who manage to enter adulthood without ever breaking out of that kind of mindset.)

Yes, it is a wild world. A lot of things do turn bad out there, but sometimes I can get by with a smile.

Right now "Wild World" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens is (probably) my 51st favorite song of all time.