Paul Fitzpatrick: London, April 2022

70s hits that go under the radar

I can’t claim to be religious so it’s no surprise that the odd times I’m invited to attend the big guys house for weddings, funerals or christenings, I generally struggle with the words to hymns, except for one, “Morning Has Broken“.

I may be in the minority here but I didn’t realise “Morning Has Broken” was a hymn first and a pop song second.

The original psalms’ lyrics, written by English poet Eleanor Farjeon in 1931 were set to a traditional Scottish folk song called “Bunessan“, which is a village on the isle of Mull.
The hymns positive message was ‘to give thanks for each day‘ and it was added to the updated ‘Songs of Praise’ in 1931.

Stevens’ idea to include a version of the hymn on his 1971 Teaser and the Firecat album was initially met with resistance by his record label Island, who were focused on promoting Stevens as the British James Taylor.
Meanwhile, the albums producer Paul Samwell-Smith was also against the songs inclusion, but for more practical reasons. The original hymn had no chorus and consisted of only 4 verses which made it’s initial recording time a paltry 44 seconds long.

Undaunted, Stevens reached out to session musician Rick Wakeman to ask if he could help with a piano arrangement for the song.

On the day of recording, Wakeman, as part of his warm-up, started playing some melodies he’d written for a solo project he was working on, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
Impressed with what he was hearing Cat Stevens said… “perfect Rick, let’s use that for ‘Morning Has Broken“!
Wakeman reluctantly agreed and basically came up with the arrangements for the start, middle and end of the song, which fleshed the track out to 3 minutes 20 seconds.

Fully aware of his significant contribution, on completion of the project Wakeman was devastated to receive no credits on the song and to make matters worse he was paid a basic session rate of £10 for his input.

Rick would have the last laugh though when Cat Stevens realised that they had no idea how to play the song live without Wakeman’s musical input. Wakeman would be in demand that year, performing his keyboard skills on “Life on Mars” for David Bowie and “Get It On” for T-Rex, before agreeing to join prog-rock legends Yes.
Wakeman would eventually go on to forge a credible solo career on the back of his profile in Yes and released The Six Wives of Henry VIII to critical acclaim in 73.

On its release Cat Stevens’ ‘Teaser and the Firecat‘ album was a critical and commercial success spawning three hit singles – “Moonshadow” and “Peace Train” which both did reasonably well, and “Morning Has Broken” which became a massive hit reaching number one in the US.

Stevens could do no wrong in the early 70s with hit singles, gold albums and sell-out tours…. and best of all, he got to date Carly Simon & Joni Mitchell.

Maybe you can get too much of a good thing, and in 1976 Stevens famously turned his back on his glittering career following a near-death experience in Malibu when he feared he was drowning.
Certain that he was about to meet his fate, Stevens allegedly cried out “God if you save me I will work for you” at which point he claims a wave appeared and swept him to shore.

Auctioning off all his guitars and devoting his time to the Islamic faith, Stevens changed his name to Yusuf Islam but gradually returned to the public eye with new music and tours.

“Morning Has Broken“, like “Amazing Grace“, is one of the few hymns that has crossed over from the pulpit to the charts and Stevens deserves enormous credit for coming up with the concept, but the contribution of Wakeman with his beautiful piano arrangement also deserves some songs of praise.

Below is an amusing audio clip of Wakeman’s side of the ‘Morning Has Broken’ story….