This 1970 Song By Cat Stevens About An Ex-Girlfriend Might Be His Most Haunting

In 1970, Cat Stevens released the album "Mona Bone Jakon," which included the otherworldly song "Lady D'Arbanville." The song marked a departure from his earlier work as a British pop star to a serious-minded singer-songwriter. It's a haunting song both lyrically and musically. "Lady D'Arbanville" is about someone mourning their dead lover. It contains lyrics reminiscent of English Romantic poetry, a distinctive classical Spanish guitar sound, and even hints of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti Western soundtracks. With lyrics like "I loved you my lady, though in your grave you lie / I'll always be with you / This rose will never die, this rose will never die," one might assume Stevens was writing about someone who had actually died. 

The song's subject, Patti D'Arbanville, was very much alive when Stevens wrote it — and still is — but the couple's relationship was on the skids two years after they'd met. In 1968, Stevens (born Steven Demetre Georgiou and now Yusuf Islam) met D'Arbanville at a London party. Stevens was still recovering from a near-fatal case of tuberculosis and was spending time reflecting on his life, part of Cat Stevens' hidden truth. The two eventually got together and fell deeply in love, or at least Stevens did. 

Patti D'Arbanville was as unique as the song she inspired Cat Stevens to write. D'Arbanville, who was born in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, had already been a muse to the pop artist Andy Warhol and been featured in two of his films, "Flesh" and "L'Amour," when she met Cat Stevens. At the time, she was modeling, which meant a lot of traveling. By 1970, their relationship was suffering. D'Arbanville felt smothered. "I could tell he was really falling in love with me, and I was feeling like I couldn't give him what he wanted," she recalled in "Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies."

When D'Arbanville left for New York City, Stevens wrote and recorded the song. D'Arbanville says she cried the first time she heard it, realizing their relationship was truly over. She later had a different reaction, though. "I left for a month; it wasn't the end of the world was it? But he wrote this whole song about 'Lady D'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still.' It's about me dead," she told Interview magazine in 1973. Their failed relationship haunted Stevens for years and would go on to inspire other songs, including his hit "Wild World." D'Arbanville would go on to date the actor Don Johnson, with whom she has a child, and continued her acting career with credits that include "The Sopranos" and "New York Undercover," among others.