“Year Of The Cat” by Al Stewart

Al Stewart wrote "Year of the Cat" with Peter Wood and made it the title track of his 1976 album, cut at Abbey Road in London that January with Alan Parsons engineering. The Scottish singer-songwriter's tune is a slow-burning, cinematic thing, piano and hushed storytelling giving way to long instrumental stretches that drift like smoke in a dim, far-off bar.

It came out as a single in Britain in July 1976, reached America in October and peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 the following March. "Time Passages" would later climb higher, but this is the record that stuck to him: his signature song, still a fixture on classic rock and folk rock stations.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.