"Wild World" is a song written and recorded by English singer-songwriter Cat Stevens. It first appeared on his fourth album, Tea for the Tillerman, recorded and released in 1970 and, continuing the change in Stevens' sound, after leaving Deram Records and signing with Island Records. Mona Bone Jakon was his first album released after a debilitating year of recovery from tuberculosis. As he convalesced, Stevens filled his time whilst still on bedrest, finding himself becoming a far more prolific songwriter, and after such a dramatic brush with death began to focus on his purpose in life after some unpleasant and stressful dealings with his previous record label. Favouring a newfound "stripped down" folk rock sound and bucking the heavily orchestrated constraints from his previous contract with Deram Records' Mike Hurst, he instead chose Paul Samwell-Smith (formerly of The Yardbirds) as his producer. With Samwell-Smith supportive of his judgement, Stevens once again began turning out hit records with a different meaning and depth, both lyrically and melodically, beginning with Mona Bone Jakon and continuing to Tea for the Tillerman, where "Wild World" became a popular hit song both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Both critics and Stevens himself agree that this album and the songs to come from it are some of Stevens' best work.
Read more about Wild World: Song Meaning, Cover Versions, Notable Covers
Famous quotes containing the words wild and/or world:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I’ve never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle. I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for—whether it’s a field, or a home, or a country.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)