Interview by Tim Van Schmidt

There are several eye-opening stories in this 1995 interview with Al Stewart.

Stewart had found a rich vein of expression in fusing singer-songwriter material with historical reference. As a result, Stewart not only carved out a niche for himself- and scored a major hit with his song “Year of the Cat”- but also attracted some strange fans as well.

Like the guy who translated Stewart’s lyrics into Latin, then translated them back into English to see if the historical nuances changed.

There’s also a good story about a recurring dream Stewart had. In the dream, he holds a LP of his music- puts it on the record player and recognizes the tunes- but finds them lost in the glare of reality when he wakes.

But apparently dreaming isn’t very foreign to Stewart who claimed the revenues from “Year of the Cat” were funding a lifestyle where he could spend days at a time time-traveling to ancient days gone by- researching and writing.

The album at the time was “Between the Wars,” a time period he describes as the intermission during the Super Bowl of World Wars. The album was recorded with guitarist Laurence Juber and represents some years in the 1920s- between World War I and the Great Depression and World War II- when Lindbergh was a hero and jazz raged.

Stewart is a talker- an interviewers dream. But here’s another good one that should wet your whistle, according to Stewart- Madonna is a “Helen,” and Sinead O’Connor is a “Cassandra.”