Line #55 Music/AlStewart


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/al_stewart.jpg]]
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3	Alastair Ian Stewart (born September 5, 1945) is a British SingerSongwriter and guitarist known particularly for exemplifying the 'confessional' school of songwriting in his early years, for [[IdiosyncraticAlbumTheming writing a large number of songs about history and historical events,]] and for the hit title tracks from his albums ''Year of the Cat'' (1976) and ''Time Passages'' (1978).
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5	Official website: http://www.alstewart.com/
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7	----
8	!!Studio discography:
9	* ''Bed Sitter Images'' (1967)
10	* ''Love Chronicles'' (1969)
11	* ''Zero She Flies'' (1970)
12	* ''Orange'' (1972)
13	* ''Past, Present & Future'' (1973)
14	* ''Modern Times'' (1975)
15	* ''Year of the Cat'' (1976)
16	* ''Time Passages'' (1978)
17	* ''24 Carrots'' (with Shot in the Dark) (1980)
18	* ''Russians & Americans'' (1984)
19	* ''Last Days of the Century'' (1988)
20	* ''Famous Last Words'' (1993)
21	* ''Between the Wars'' (with Laurence Juber) (1995)
22	* ''Down in the Cellar'' (2000)
23	* ''Dark Side'' (2004)[[note]]A compilation of unreleased songs from 1980-1993[[/note]]
24	* ''A Beach Full of Shells'' (2005)
25	* ''Sparks of Ancient Light'' (2008)
26	* ''The Tzar, His Library and the Winter Palace'' (2009)[[note]]More unreleased songs; these are from 1973-1999[[/note]]
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29	!!Tropes associated with Al Stewart and/or his work include:
30	* AuthorAppeal: Very fond of history as a theme:
31	** UsefulNotes/AncientGreece: "Helen and Cassandra," "Hanno the Navigator"
32	** TheMiddleAges: "Merlin's Time," "Constantinople," "Nostradamus," "Merry Monks"
33	*** TheLateMiddleAges: "A Man For All Seasons"
34	** UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution: "The Palace of Versailles," "UsefulNotes/CharlotteCorday"
35	** WoodenShipsAndIronMen: "Lord Grenville"
36	** Nineteenth Century: "Lord Salisbury," "Ellis Island"
37	** UsefulNotes/WorldWarI: "Old Admirals," "Manuscript," "Fields of France," "Somewhere in England 1915"
38	** Interwar period: ''Between The Wars,'' "Warren Harding," "Joe the Georgian," "The Last Day of June 1934," "Laughing Into 1939," "[[UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar On the Border]]," "Creator/JosephineBaker," "Immelman Turn"
39	** UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: "Roads to Moscow," "Murmansk Run," "Trains"
40	** The latter half of The20thCentury: "Post World War Two Blues," "Shah of Shahs," "Running Man," "Night Meeting," "A Child's View of the [[UsefulNotes/DwightEisenhower Eisenhower]] Years," "Class of '58," "In Red Square", "Gina in the King's Road", "[[UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} Ton Ton Macoutte]]".
41	* BaitAndSwitch: "A Long Way Down From Stephanie" is a [[GriefSong heartbroken lament]] about a lost lover written in [[ShoutOutToShakespeare Shakespearian style]]. The last line reveals that Stephanie was [[spoiler: his first-grade crush: "And though lost at six, if I should live to be seven, I might forget Stephanie."]]
42	* BeenThereShapedHistory: Al himself is a real life example. He met Music/YokoOno before any of Music/TheBeatles and shared a flat with Music/SimonAndGarfunkel (and was their roadie on their first big tour).
43	* ConceptAlbum: several.
44	** ''Past, Present, and Future'' is a historical based album with a song for each decade of the twentieth century up to the time it was recorded.
45	** ''Between The Wars'' does the same for the period 1919-1938.
46	** ''Down in the Cellar'' is a concept album inspired by wine.
47	* EnvironmentalSymbolism: many songs use the ocean as a setting ("Lord Grenville", "Old Admirals", "Murmansk Run", the first verse of "On the Border") or a metaphor ("The Dark and the Rolling Sea", "Midnight Rocks", "Rocks in the Ocean", "Life in Dark Water", “Joe the Georgian”). Also an instance of AuthorAppeal.
48	* EpicRocking: to give just a few examples, "Song on the Radio" (6:19), "Time Passages" (6:43), "Murmansk Run[=/=]Ellis Island" (7:41), "Roads to Moscow" (8:00), "Trains" (8:17), "Nostradamus" (9:43)--yet, all of these pale in comparison to "Love Chronicles", which runs for 18:04.
49	* GranolaGirl: Heroines like these turn up in a few of his songs, including "Carol," "Year of the Cat," and "In Brooklyn".
50	* HypocriticalHumour: A darker example with "Night of the 4th of May". The narrator begins by telling his girlfriend that he wants an open relationship and goes off with another woman at a party... and then gets huffy because his girlfriend does exactly the same thing.
51	* LyricalDissonance:
52	** "Post World War II Blues". The tune is bouncy, the lyrics are a catalog of almost every major tragedy of the post-1945 years.
53	** "Last Train To Munich". The music is catchy Music/DjangoReinhardt-style {{jazz}}. The lyrics are about how the narrator is sending his best friend on an espionage mission which will almost certainly lead to his death.
54	* PatterSong: "Soho (Needless to Say)"
55	* PrecisionFStrike: On the song "Love Chronicles". Bonus points for using it in its literal sense as well.
56	* SanitySlippageSong: "Terminal Eyes".
57	* ShoutOut:
58	** "Terminal Eyes", on the album ''Past Present & Future'', is a deliberate imitation of Music/TheBeatles' "[[Music/MagicalMysteryTour I Am the Walrus]]". The liner notes dedicate the song to "egg-men everywhere."
59	*** "Soho (Needless to Say)", from the same album, is written InTheStyleOf Music/BobDylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues".
60	** "Year of the Cat" mentions Creator/HumphreyBogart and Creator/PeterLorre.
61	** "Flying Sorcery" references a lot of aviation history.
62	** His historical songs are full of them.
63	* ShownTheirWork: Exemplifies this trope with his historical songs which are all thoroughly researched and contain all manner of references to obscure individuals and little known historical incidents and anecdotes. He is said to have read over seventy books on the Eastern Front while composing the lyrics to "Roads to Moscow."
64	* TyrantTakesTheHelm: The song “Joe the Georgian” is actually about UsefulNotes/JosefStalin's rise to power, [[AlternateHistory re-imagined in a naval setting]]. While the real life story may be subjective to some, the song definitely isn't.
65	-->''We all set off together''
66	-->''On this sorry ship of state''
67	-->''When the captain took the fever''
68	-->''We were hijacked by the mate''
69	-->''And he steered us through the shadows''
70	-->''Upon an angry tide''
71	-->''And cast us one by one over the side''
72	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: "Night of the 4th of May" is a retelling of a real life argument between Stewart and his 1960s girlfriend Mandi.
73	** WriteWhoYouKnow: even after they broke up, Mandi was the inspiration for many of Stewart's relationship songs, including "Where Are they Now?", "Bad Reputation", and "Optical Illusion."
74	* WalkingTheEarth: the narrators of "Apple Cider Re-Constitution," "Timeless Skies," and "Year of the Cat," among others
75	* WhamLine: The song "Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres," in which the narrator meets a girl in a bookshop, invites her back to his flat, makes her dinner, talks to her about her life story and eventually invites her to live with him to which she replies [[spoiler: "But I've not finished school yet"]]
76	* WhatMightHaveBeen: Stewart often writes the music and records all of the instrumental tracks for a song--or even a ''whole album''--before writing lyrics. What eventually became "Year of the Cat" originally told the story of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hancock Tony Hancock]], a British [[RecordedAndStandUpComedy stand-up comic]] who [[DrivenToSuicide killed himself;]] the chorus was "Your tears fall down like rain/At [[TitleDrop the foot of the stage]]." The record company objected to those lyrics because American listeners would have no idea who Tony Hancock was. Stewart then saw the phrase "Year of the Cat" in his girlfriend's book on [[UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} Vietnamese]] astrology and decided that would be the song's title. Suffering from writer's block after an abortive attempt at composing lyrics about cats, he saw ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' on television and decided to "grab Creator/HumphreyBogart and Creator/PeterLorre and see where it goes."
77	* WordSaladLyrics: Generally Al works hard on the meaning of his lyrics but this trope comes into play in "Red Toupee" which was originally merely meant to be guide lyrics to a backing track from co-writer Peter White. However, they both thought the lyrics sounded so good they kept them as they were.
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Context Music / AlStewart