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Boy with a Moon and Star on His Head Lyrics
The Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head
A gardener's daughter stopped me on my way, on the day I was
to wed
It is you who I wish to share my body with she said
We'll find a dry place under the sky with a flower for a bed
And for my joy I will give you a boy with a moon and
star on his head.
Her silver hair flowed in the air laying waves across the sun
Her hands were like the white sands, and her eyes had
diamonds on.
We left the road and headed up to the top of the
Whisper Wood
And we walked 'till we came to where the holy magnolia stood.
And there we laid cool in the shade singing songs and
making love...
With the naked earth beneath us and the universe above.
The time was late my wedding wouldn't wait I was sad but
I had to go,
So while she was asleep I kissed her cheek for cheerio.
The wedding took place and people came from many
miles around
There was plenty merriment, cider and wine abound
But out of all that I recall I remembered the girl I met
'Cause she had given me something that my hear could not
forget.
A year had passed and everything was just as it was a year
before...
As if was a year before...
Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby crying to be fed,
I got down on my knees and kissed the moon and star on
his head.
As years went by the boy grew high and the village looked
on in awe
They'd never seen anything like the boy with the moon and
star before.
And people would ride from far and wide just to seek the
word he spread
I'll tell you everything I've learned, and Love is all...he said.
to wed
It is you who I wish to share my body with she said
We'll find a dry place under the sky with a flower for a bed
And for my joy I will give you a boy with a moon and
star on his head.
Her silver hair flowed in the air laying waves across the sun
Her hands were like the white sands, and her eyes had
diamonds on.
We left the road and headed up to the top of the
Whisper Wood
And we walked 'till we came to where the holy magnolia stood.
And there we laid cool in the shade singing songs and
making love...
With the naked earth beneath us and the universe above.
The time was late my wedding wouldn't wait I was sad but
I had to go,
So while she was asleep I kissed her cheek for cheerio.
The wedding took place and people came from many
miles around
There was plenty merriment, cider and wine abound
But out of all that I recall I remembered the girl I met
'Cause she had given me something that my hear could not
forget.
A year had passed and everything was just as it was a year
before...
As if was a year before...
Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby crying to be fed,
I got down on my knees and kissed the moon and star on
his head.
As years went by the boy grew high and the village looked
on in awe
They'd never seen anything like the boy with the moon and
star before.
And people would ride from far and wide just to seek the
word he spread
I'll tell you everything I've learned, and Love is all...he said.
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Okay, I will tell you what this song is about. My dad used to be friends with this guy that played with Cat whenever he toured the west coast back in the 70's. This guys favorite thing to wear when he played with Cat was this hat with an emblem of a moon and a star on it. Cat always commented on it. He really liked it and even asked where he could get one. It was a hand me down, so this guy couldn't tell him. So one day after he stopped playing with Cat, this song was written.
I guess their's no guarantee that this song is about that, but I'd bet on it considering the aforementioned interest Cat had in this particular hat.
@diehardbruin55 thanks for sharing that background story
@diehardbruin55 thanks for sharing that background story
Hi folks, Me as an devoted Cat Stevens fan I tell you what this song do to me in my life up from 18-53y old now! First i have to say, that this one is the most played one I play and sing along with guitar! The first person I performed it for was my first youth love! She likes Cat Steven also! But unfortenuatly I' ll never get closer to her.../ The hardest line in this song is the part where the man go on his knees to the basket with the "fairiest little baby -and kissed the moon and star on his head"! Mostly the tears ran out of my eyes without knowing why!? The description of "the gardeners daughter" is like a mystical tale...compares a bit to "Lady in black" (Uriah Heep)or "Mother Mary" from "Let it be" (Beatles)and I think it also can be a symbol to "Mother Earth or Nature" in a wider sense! I love this song the guitar technic the tune and the lyric! All together it's a masterpiece of a "love/peace song" - And I shall play it ever and ever - till my life last! Redwanderer PS: And LOVE IS ALL! (HE? said!)
Pretty?It's more than pretty!This song is great!And it's so unlike most of Cat Stevens' songs that I feel there must be something behind them all, even if they do seem self explanatory. Does the moon and star refer to his later convertion to the islamic religion?Had this already been forming in his head?Why has no-one commented on this?"
I have loved Cat Stevens since my JHS & high school days along with my uplifting Greek culture introductions by my early adolescent Greek girl friends. I have no knowledge of the actual origin of Cat’s Song but to me it was about following one’s heart and serendipitous romantic, passionate love (in a time when arranged social marriages and settling/compromising one’s desires were in practice). It became one of my life’s mantras, a personal search for that perfect, romantic and passionate love. I adopted the moon and star imagery in two pieces of jewelry, one I still have. This song along with “Father and Son” and another song from that time “Heart of Gold” have been inspirational for me.
This is such a pretty song, I'm surprised no one has commented on it before. The lyrics are pretty much self-explanatory, though I have no idea where they came from.
The moon and star predates Islam, and was a symbol of ancient Greece. In that Cat is of Greek heritage, maybe this has something to do with this reference.
It definitely seems to have some religious meaning, especially the part in the end where it mentions "people would ride from far and wide just to seek the word he spread"
There are also allusions to a baby in a basket (Moses). IT seems very religious to me but I don't know much about Christian/Islamic motifs
I have to wonder if 'Cat' made some efforts to include the wife (an obligatory aspect of a wedding) into the lyrics. Maybe it's like the Piña Colada Song and it turns out that the gardener's daughter IS the wife. Or maybe the narrator is in some kind of cult where wives are completely subjugated and confined to prescribed roles.
It's a serious oversight to ignore the Islamic connotation. The moon and star are a symbol of the religion he converted to only five years after this album. Someone here also mentions the baby in a basket, similar to Moses, who is a prophet of Islam, and of course the people coming from far and wide to hear the word he spread.
I don't presume to know exactly what he's saying here but I think it's wrong to ignore this possibility.