You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Herway.

The legendary singer-songwriter, Yusuf Kat Stevens, released his first album in 1967.

He's a member of the rock and roll hall of fame and his albums have sold millions.

In 2020, he released Tea for the Tiller Man 2, a reimagining of his hit 1970 album Tea for the Tiller Man.

In the song Father and Son, he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices.

But in the 2020 version, he approached the song in kind of an astonishing way. He recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son,

he used a live recording of himself from 1970, taken from a show he played at the Trubidor in Los Angeles.

So the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart.

In this episode, the 200th episode of Song Exploder, Yusuf Kat Stevens tells the story of how he created and then recreated Father and Son.

My name is Yusuf Kat Stevens.

The story begins with songs and lyrics that weren't originally intended for an album.

They grew out of a whole project which I was working on, which was a musical.

I always wanted to write a musical because I lived in the West End and so therefore I was surrounded by theatres.

It shaped the background, the soundtrack to my life.

I was working with a man called Nigel Hawthorne, well known actor, comedian and a writer.

We were chosen as a subject for the musical, The Russian Revolution.

The name of the musical was Revolution.

There was this story going on in the countryside of this Russian family who lived on a farm out there in the outskirts.

Where the son's name was Sasha and the father's name was Dad, you know, his father.

And the son in this scene was wanting to join the Revolution.

But the father loves you, you know, he loves you. That's why he wants you to stay home.

It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy.

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