Al Stewart is something of the Forrest Gump of English folk music, having shared stages with a mind-boggling list of musical luminaries from both sides of the Atlantic.
Perhaps it is the fly-on-the-wall nature of his career experience, or perhaps it's something else, but Stewart's best work is rich with the history of the world, told by and about individual historical figures.
In concert -- and, if you haven't seen him live, you absolutely must -- he links two seemingly-unrelated songs. You'll hear this accidental magnum opus in the video. The scope is panoramic -- eternal, you could almost say -- from the prophecies of Nostradamus to a modern-day prophecy of Stewart's own.
You can never be sure what the dawn will bring
So just be careful how you choose your friends now
Every turn in the night of the wheel of fortune
Changes everything, don't lose your head now
Like a storm on the ocean, empires wax and wane
And crumble away
And the world goes to Riyadh, today
The implications are deadly-serious, but somehow, the mashup I hear in my head is of "Nostradamus", and this proto-punk gem from Manfred Mann -- and it is anything but serious.
From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be
An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he
One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germanie
No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be
Who let them in was it the Greeks?
(Five-Four-Three-Two-One)
Uh huh, it was The MANNNfreds
Here's Al Stewart, folk musician and spinner of historical tales, with the serious version -- "Nostradamus/The World Goes To Riyadh".
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