The song Yusuf/Cat Stevens called 50 years ahead of its time: “The problem has not gone away”

Posted On November 28, 2025November 28, 2025

We are living in unprecedented times… or so we like to think. In reality, Cat Stevens had predicted most of what we’re going through all the way back in 1970.

Without turning this down an entirely depressing path, there’s a lot to be said for the fact that, despite our wildest imaginings, society has never really changed all that much. Even some 55 years ago, Stevens was there singing about the impacts of “jumbo planes”, “cosmic trains”, “slot machines”, and “lorry loads pumping petrol gas”. 

Although people most obviously listened to the sentiment back then, it’s only perhaps now that we truly sit up and take stock of the fact that these harms have been the thorn in our side all along, and realise its terrifying nature when we were already being warned about it so long ago. It’s not like Stevens is smug over that, but he certainly knows that ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ is the message the 21st century is crying out for.

To be fair, the song didn’t just represent a single feather in his cap. The entire album that the track hailed from, 1970’s Tea for the Tillerman, could be credited with much of the same searing lyricism that it could have been written at any point between then and now and still remain as relevant.

But nevertheless, it was still ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ that has forever stayed the most “prescient” in Stevens’ mind as the reality of the song unravelled before his very eyes. “It’s become clear that what I was talking about, the problem, has not gone away. It’s just got bigger and more dangerous,” he explained in a GQ interview in 2020. Whether it’s climate change or AI, the only people it’s really harming are the future generations who have to forge a life from the detritus.

“If you listen to that, there’s also a reference towards what we’re living in – a corporate world,” the singer added, referencing that very same conundrum. But in the spirit of the ever-positive optimist, he was also clear to say that, despite everything, all hope was not lost. “That’s why this rebellion or upsurge in wanting to find our human balance again, and the freedom that goes along with that, is happening. It’s great. We’ve got a voice,” he said.

In this sense, you can view Stevens’ ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s a stark and sobering realisation of the amount of time we have squandered in trying to save the world, but on the other, it’s the ultimate lesson in seizing the day and creating change from your own doorstep, while it’s still not too late.

This was the precise point Stevens was making when he re-recorded the entirety of Tea for the Tillerman upon its 50th anniversary in 2020. We have always lived on a somewhat dystopian, broken planet – but the only ones who are going to be able to fix it are us.

Presidents and prime ministers can do a lot of big talking with empty words, but sometimes, all you need is a song to truly cut to the chase. Stevens was, and still is, the very man for that, simply because he could write tunes that were half a century ahead of their time and never once seem out of place. There’s not many with that skill.

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