Cat Stevens – Here Comes My Baby

Album:
Matthew & Son
Year :
1967
RIYL :
Bob Dylan / Simon & Garfunkel / The Kinks

Last week I got around to watching the 1971 American classic Harold and Maude. I’m late to the party on most things, and to the extent that Harold and Maude can be considered a party it is certainly no exception. It’s about a death-obsessed, alienated youngster (eponymous Harold) forming a special bond with a manic pixie dream elder woman (eponymous Maude). The soundtrack has quite a few Cat Stevens tunes, but the one that sort of ties the whole thing together is “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” You don’t even have to listen to it (though you should)—the title alone should be indication enough that it’s a somewhat overbearing manic pixie dream song for an older generation. Maybe this was their “New Slang.”

Anyway, for me the film’s soundtrack and characters drew pretty overt parallels to Rushmore, a more contemporary movie that I thankfully was not late to the party on. It was my favorite movie for a spell, but I’m not here to write about movie plots or opinions, so suffice to say that, in terms of said parallels, the Rushmore soundtrack has two Cat Stevens songs and also a (unrequited) romance between two people (Max and Ms. Cross, student and teacher respectively) separated by age and life experience. Both films use their respective Cat Stevens songs to iconic and bittersweet effect. Unlike Max and Olivia, though, Harold and Maude get around to the sordid business of requiting.

“Here Comes My Baby” appears on the Rushmore soundtrack. The song’s incredibly upbeat, catchy melody and its sad sack lyrics of unreciprocated love create a marked contrast. But there’s a hope embedded in the singer’s frustration that justifies the lyrical/melodic dissonance. He asserts that, w/r/t “baby, someday it’s gonna start.” Likewise, both movies end on hopeful notes—not an explicit hope but a general affirmation that while there can be heartbreak and pain and loneliness when we’re young all things pass with time and time is plenty. The general affirmation was enough for the sad sack high school me seeing Rushmore for the first time. For the knocking-on-thirty’s-door me that just took in Harold and Maude, it felt slight. That’s probably why I found “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” and the movie at large to both be a mite precious. But “Here Comes My Baby” still manages to remind me that even if someday can be a moving target, time never fully gets away from us.



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Jeff Bennet (@JeffBennet) goes with Drake any time someone asks him who his favorite band or artist is, because he has this personality flaw where he needs to be all things to all people.

One Response to “Cat Stevens – Here Comes My Baby

  1. October 03, 2013 at 11:47 am, Ryan Hecht said:

    Wow thank you. I just watched Harold and Maude and almost wrote this exact post.