Hands Down You're A True Cat Stevens Fan If You Know These 5 Deep Cuts

For a real Cat Stevens aficionado, choosing the deep cuts that show off your intensive knowledge of his greatest works is a daunting task. So many of his tunes have drifted by as a soundtrack to life for decades, works richer than just the Stevens tunes that catapulted up the charts and helped make him a sensation in the music world. The good news in searching for the best ones is that there are plenty of lesser-known tracks to dig through, making for an audio treasure hunt through a trove of fantastic music.

Our picks for the classics Cat Stevens fanatics are sure to know run the gamut from playful and bouncy to stark and otherworldly. The eclectic mix of "Here Comes My Baby" with its simple sweetness served side-by-side with "My Lady D'Arbanville" with its the near-ghost story chill and "Angelsea" with a touch of trippy psychedelia shows the diverse range of sounds sincere Stevens fans can't get enough of. Add a little existential contemplation from "Where Do the Children Play?" and "Trouble," and you have a five-piece record set that diehards can easily name as soon as they hear them. 

One of Cat Stevens' more upbeat tunes, "Here Comes My Baby" sounds like it comes from a different artist entirely. It has the jaunty rhythm of a '60s pop Pied Piper rather than the thoughtful depth and complex musical construction of the singer's more philosophical work. Rather than being off-putting, it makes for a charming sing-along tune that gets your fingers snapping and your toes tapping — not something you can say about too many Cat Stevens songs. It's also about nothing deeper than being upset at seeing your ex passing by with her new beau in tow, a simple topic that gets the sweet treatment.

The mod peppiness feels like a relic in the Cat Stevens catalog, but his voice is unmistakable, and his delivery is keen and youthful — not surprising for a recording released in 1967. The lyrics are uncharacteristically simple for any aficionado of Stevens' more intellectual writings. "I'm still waitin' for your heart / 'Cause I'm sure that, someday, it's gonna start / You'll be mine to hold each day / But till then, this is all that I can say." Decades later, they seem charmingly earnest, an attempt by a young songwriter to match the pop-music mode of his time. The song appeared on his first album, "Matthew & Son," and was covered by British band the Tremeloes, which gave it a bit more sing-along spirit. That version went to No. 4 in the U.K., but it's the original rendition that Stevens stans love best.

The modern struggle to keep the environment clean and pristine isn't new, and Cat Stevens illustrates it beautifully in his lesser-known track "Where Do the Children Play?" Lovers of his stunning 1970 album "Tea for the Tillerman" will easily recognize it as the opening track, a slow-strumming exploration of how the corporate world feels free to impinge on the natural world for profit. It was an eye-opener for young listeners who weren't yet familiar with social causes and protest songs, and it became an anthem for music fans who adored Stevens' clever and poignant approach to making the world aware of how much damage was being done.

As with his top 10 hit "Oh Very Young," which would come several years later, Stevens lets the well-being of children lead the way in this gentle yet stern ballad. He describes essentially the same fight being waged today to keep progress from steamrolling the ecosystem: "Well, you roll on roads / Over fresh green grass / For your lorry loads / Pumping petrol gas / And you make them long / And you make them tough / But they just go on and on / And it seems that you can't get off." If the situation was this obvious and dire more than 50 years ago, imagine how much more pressing the matter must be now; add AI data centers and the slow roll-out of alternative energy sources, and this song could have been written yesterday.

"Lady D'Arbanville" never made the waves that his more commercial songs did, likely because it's an eerie tribute that only Cat Stevens' truest fans can appreciate. It reads like an Edgar Allan Poe sonnet, filled with gothic imagery and suggestions of mortality mirroring the ending of a love affair. Stevens sings in essentially a controlled wail, "I loved you, my lady / Though in your grave, you lie / I'll always be with you / This rose will never die." It's as haunting and despairing as any Poe-penned lament, set to a lilting Spanish guitar backdrop that adds timeless elegance.

The poetic "Lady D'Arbanville" is an icy tribute to Stevens' ill-fated romance with model and actress Patti D'Arbanville, which ended after two years when her attentions turned to one Mick Jagger instead. Rather than play coy with his musical missive like a folk version of Taylor Swift or a male Carly Simon, Stevens full-on names his paramour and describes her as though she's dead. It would be the diss track to end all diss tracks, if it wasn't such an oddly moving testament to his eternal love, even after death.

D'Arbanville also inspired his much better-known hit, Stevens' 1971 breakthrough tune "Wild World," a No. 11 smash that was a bit more upbeat than this anguished track. True fans favor "Lady D'Arbanville" over "Wild World" for the superlative emotion that makes it feel a love letter to the afterworld.

"Trouble" is one of those classic Cat Stevens tunes that takes a philosophical view of life's woes and turns it into a quiet anthem you can sing to yourself in times of struggle. The lyrics roll out sounding suspiciously prayer-like, begging trouble to back off; Stevens has had enough of your company and doesn't need it any more, thank you very much. "Trouble, oh, trouble, set me free / I have seen your face and it's too much, too much for me." It only gets more intense from there as Stevens begs his woes to be gone, though as dire as things sound, his plea isn't likely to have worked.

Though "Trouble" was never a single, it did make an appearance in the 1970s cult classic film "Harold and Maude," played over a silent scene of lead actors Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon as their May-December romance comes to a tragic close. It sets the perfect tone for scenes of young Cort dealing with literal trouble that he's not fully mature enough to handle. In addition to being a deep cut Stevens fans can't get enough of, it's also touched fans of the film over the decades, creating a soundtrack of sorrow that feels perfectly placed and entirely authentic.

Maybe Stevens' prayer for trouble's departure didn't come true, but his deft delivery and insightful poetry have given his lifelong followers more than enough hope to keep rolling.

The psychedelic aspects of Cat Stevens' earlier works take on a shimmering electronic skin in "Angelsea," a funky step-away from his usual folk and adult-contemporary stylings. It's not exactly in the mode of Rick James or Bootsy Collins, but it's as close to funk as a laid-back dude like Stevens gets. It's also a sweet sonic experiment that longtime listeners will remember as a shift that felt like a commercial move as much as an artistic one, though the tune didn't show up on the charts as a single. Regardless, it's one of Stevens' most memorable deep cuts and a gem for anyone who happily followed along as his sound evolved.

The romantic lyrics show off Stevens' recognition of cosmic forces, tinged with astrological references: "She moves like an angel / And seven evening stars / Dance through the windows / Of her universal house." The song is one of his more unusual constructions; it has no bridge or chorus, only verses, each of which extols the virtues of this mysterious woman, presumed by listeners to be the Angelsea of the title. By the second verse, it makes no difference that there's no thoughtful refrain coming. The flowing descriptions are so captivating, you're taking the ride wherever it leads.

The most fervent Cat Stevens fans love this piece for its trippy experimentation, though it never wanders too far from his better-known compositions. It's fun just to see the usually staid songwriter stretch his wings a little.