Yr of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, launched in 1976 and was produced and engineered by Alan Parsons; it’s thought of his masterpiece, its gross sales helped by the hit single “Yr of the Cat”, “a kind of ‘mysterious lady’ songs,” co-written by Peter Wooden. The opposite single from the album was “On the Border”. Stewart wrote “Lord Grenville” concerning the Elizabethan sailor and explorer Sir Richard Grenville (1542–1591).
Stewart had all the music and orchestration written and utterly recorded earlier than he even had a title for any of the songs. In a Canadian radio interview he said that he has completed this for six of his albums, and he typically writes 4 completely different units of lyrics for every tune. The title monitor derives from a tune Stewart wrote in 1966 referred to as “Foot of the Stage” with prescient lyrics about Tony Hancock, considered one of Britain’s favorite comedians who tragically dedicated suicide two years later. When Stewart found that Hancock was not well-known in america, he went again to his authentic title “Yr of the Cat”.
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