Yusuf/Cat Stevens: Music was a calling for me
Yusuf/Cat Stevens decided to pursue music because it felt like more than "just a career choice".
Yusuf/Cat Stevens thinks that music was a "calling" for him.
The Matthew and Son singer will release the memoir Cat On The Road To Findout next week charting his lengthy career in music and recalled how pursuing the art form was more than a mere "business decision".
Yusuf/Cat told The Sun newspaper: "I felt I had something to offer. I felt that people should get it.
"It wasn't just a career choice or business decision. It was more than that – it felt like a calling.
"I responded to it and it responded to me. My songs, everything, came so easily. I wrote The First Cut Is The Deepest when I was 17 (in 1965).
"My brother David also had a big hand in it because he was the business head of the family. He was instrumental in getting me contacts."
The Morning Has Broken artist also explained how his music career was shaped by a near-death experience as a teenager in 1960s London where he almost fell from a rooftop.
He said: "It was the moment I first faced up to mortality.
"I already considered myself as a thinker by then and, as such, you can't help thinking that one day you won't be here.
"Whether it's through an accident or illness or by dying in your sleep, it's all one thing. You leave this world."
The Wild World hitmaker – who adopted the name Yusuf Islam after converting to Islam in 1977 – explained that not being tied to a single religion was "very useful" as he wrote his memoir.
Yusuf/Cat said: "I wanted a black canvas. I didn't want to be influenced by my background or wherever I was situated in society."
The 77-year-old singer-songwriter added: "I was absolutely determined to write 'a' good book, not 'the' good book. I didn't want people to think it had to be The Bible."
