Well, my guitar repertoire just stinks of guy-with-a-guitar-in-a-pub, so I’ve had to rely on the piano for today’s. This here is one of the most relaxing songs to play on the piano, and I reckon it’s almost entirely down to that delicious riff.
Sultry and smooth, the piano draws you in until that moment when the whole band kicks off and you’re startled out of your reverie. Gets me every time. If this song were human, it’d be a woman in a red dress at a bamboo bar by the beach, drinking a martini, and as soon as you saunter up alongside to start schmoozing, she throws her drink in your face, picks up her purse and swishes away like a dame in a Bogart movie.
Year of the Cat is full of surprises, not least the unexpected triple-barreled instrumental section. You think it’s done after the electric guitar solo and then---Oh shit Sax!---you’re knocked to the floor and the song melts over you. Paralyzed by smooth tones and immobile; wrapped up in a groove.
It’s songs like these that make me glad I play the piano: songs that are relaxing to play, songs that demand your full attention on the keyboard. Playing Year of the Cat, I feel like I’m in a hotel bar at 2 a.m., nobody’s really listening to me, and the barman is pouring me Scotch after Scotch. Songs like this make me glad I can play, they make me glad that music exists, and they make me damn glad that the 1970s happened.
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