THE YEAR THEY GOT MATT – Parody of The Year of the Cat

A parody of The Year of the Cat by Al Stewart
Parody written by David Cohen and Performeed by Don Caron
Executive Producer Jerry Pender

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LYRICS TO “THE YEAR THEY GOT MATT”
by David Cohen

On a morning from his desk in Congress
Using keystrokes that will prove he’s slime
He went prowling on the Web like Jeffrey Epstein
Perpetrating a crime

He came out overdone with his big mouth running
Claiming innocence, he could not feign
And offered up some explanations
but they all seemed inane
In the year they got Matt

The Feds will ask him lots of questions
Do his answers lock up with theirs?
Then his life will take a turn but which direction?
bravado disappears

When his defense stalls and he puts up walls
But the evidence still sticks like glue
Those days, he’ll say, “I see my life
Just like a nightmare coming true”
The year they got Matt

Well, the Judge speaks to him sharply
As his eyes fill like dark tides in the sea
He’ll come with hand cuffs which hold firmly
As they take him, to find what’s waiting inside
The year they got Matt

Each morning comes and he’s still in there
All his freedoms and dignity gone
‘Cause they’ve stripped away his rights and punched his ticket
So, he has to stay on

While the sordid stains of his life remain
In the rhythm of the day to day
He prays someday, unbound, he’ll leave there
But that’s not for him to say
In the year they got Matt
The year they got Matt

ABOUT THE SOURCE MATERIAL
The Year of the Cat – Al Stewart

“Year of the Cat” is a song by British singer-songwriter Al Stewart, released as a single in July 1976 in the UK (October 1976 in the U.S.). The song is the title track of his 1976 album Year of the Cat, and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, in January 1976 by engineer Alan Parsons. The song reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1977. Although Stewart’s highest charting single on that chart was 1978’s “Time Passages”,[3] “Year of the Cat” has remained Stewart’s signature recording, receiving regular airplay on both classic rock and folk rock stations.

Co-written by Peter Wood, “Year of the Cat” is a narrative song written in the second person whose protagonist, a tourist, is visiting an exotic market when a mysterious silk-clad woman appears and takes him away for a gauzy romantic adventure. On waking the next day beside her, the tourist notes that his tour bus has left without him, and decides to stay where he is for the time being.

The Cat is one of the twelve signs of the Vietnamese zodiac. It corresponds to the year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. At the time of the song’s release, the most recent Year of the Rabbit had been 11 February 1975 to 30 January 1976; thus, the song was written and recorded in the Vietnamese Year of the Cat.

The song began as “Foot of the Stage”, a song written by Stewart in 1966 after seeing a performance by comedian Tony Hancock whose patter about “being a complete loser” who might as well “end it all right here” drew laughs from the audience: Stewart’s intuitive response that Hancock was in genuine despair led to the writing of “Foot of the Stage”. It was the melody for this never-recorded song to which Stewart set the lyrics of “Year of the Cat” in 1975. Pianist Peter Wood was given a co-writing credit on the song. Stewart explained Wood’s involvement in the creation of “Year of the Cat” during a concert in Edmonds, Washington in November 2017. He recalled that he was opening for Linda Ronstadt during a 1975 tour of the United States and receiving a decidedly mixed reaction from audiences when he noticed the pianist (presumably Wood) using a catchy chord progression during sound checks. Stewart asked if he could add words to the notes, but the pianist said no. Stewart incorporated the notes into the melodic line of “The Year of the Cat” anyway.

The track is noted for its lengthy instrumental sections—over four minutes of the 6:40 album version is instrumental, including a long, melodic series of solos that encompass cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitar, distorted electric guitar, synthesizer and saxophone. Tim Renwick plays both the acoustic lead and electric lead and George Ford plays bass. Parsons had Phil Kenzie add the saxophone part of the song—and by doing so transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Al Stewart onto the charts.

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