Mona Bone Jakon

After a meteoric start to his career, surprising even his original producer at Deram Records with the hit singles "I Love My Dog", "Matthew and Son", and "I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun", Stevens' debut album, Matthew and Son, began charting. However, after the pressure for a repeat album of the same calibre, Stevens, considered a young teen sensation, was overwhelmed by a new lifestyle as well as the demands of writing, recording, performing, publicity appearances, and touring. His second album was a commercial failure and in the autumn of 1968, he was hospitalized, with a diagnosis of tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. For over a year, while recovering, Stevens virtually disappeared from the British pop scene. Mona Bone Jakon is notable not only for his return but for the emergence of a very different artist. The album sold slowly (at first) but over time has been certified Gold for sales/shipments of more than 500,000 copies in the United States.^[1]

During his year of doctor‑ordered bed rest, Stevens wrote a large number of new songs. After recovering, he negotiated his release from Deram Records and began working with former Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who encouraged a stripped‑down sound. In contrast to his first two albums, the new material featured sparse arrangements built around acoustic guitar and keyboards, supported by a small backing group that included guitarist Alun Davies, bassist John Ryan, and drummer Harvey Burns; Peter Gabriel contributed flute to the track "Katmandu". Samwell‑Smith produced the sessions, with an emphasis on high‑fidelity clarity and a more prominent low‑end presence, reflecting the growing audiophile market of the period.^[2] These recordings marked Stevens's transition from pop to a more folk rock‑oriented style at a time when the term "singer‑songwriter" was beginning to enter popular usage.^[3] The songs themselves were darker in tone: the madrigal-inspired ballad "Lady D'Arbanville" elevated the tragedy of a lost lover (in this case, Stevens' former girlfriend Patti D'Arbanville) to that of a deceased one, and "Trouble" was a plea to stave off death. There were also lighter songs: "Pop Star" showcased Stevens' dramatic change in voice by satirising the triviality of celebrity.

Though "Lady D'Arbanville" would reach No. 8 on the British charts, Mona Bone Jakon was only a modest success upon its initial release. The album attracted attention, however, in the wake of the commercial breakthrough of its follow-up, Tea for the Tillerman, and with the inclusion of three of its songs ("Trouble", "I Wish, I Wish", and "I Think I See the Light") in Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins's 1971 black comedy, Harold and Maude.

According to a 1972 interview with Stevens, the inspiration for the title was a name he created to describe his penis: "'Mona Bone Jakon' is another name for my penis. It's the name I give it. It's not some sort of secret vocabulary, it's just something I made up."^[4]

Journalist Robert Chalmers reiterated this point for a 2003 interview with Yusuf Islam for The Independent on Sunday when he wrote: "When [Stevens] re-emerged in 1969, he had more than 40 new songs and released three triumphant albums in 15 months on Chris Blackwell's Island label: Mona Bone Jakon (his pet word for penis), Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat."^[5]

The symbolism of the cover artwork was related to Stevens' original intended title for the album, The Dustbin Cried the Day the Dustman Died.^[6]

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+, noting that "this one has a nice post-creative trauma feel, intimate and sensitive. Recommended to singer/songwriter specialists."^[8] Later, he revised his review to a B− and expressed a newfound dislike for the songs "Lady D'Arbanville", "Trouble", and "I Wish, I Wish".^[7]

In a retrospective review, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann called it "a group of simple, heartfelt songs played in spare arrangements on acoustic guitars and keyboards and driven by a restrained rhythm section". He added that "Stevens' craggy voice, with its odd breaks of tone and occasional huskiness, lent these sometimes sketchy songs depth".^[9]

• Cat Stevens – acoustic guitar (all tracks), keyboards (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10), lead vocals (all tracks), congas (track 6), percussion (track 10)
• Alun Davies – acoustic guitar (tracks 1–5, 7, 10), backing vocals (tracks 3–5, 7, 10)
• John Ryan – double bass (tracks 1–3, 5, 8), bass guitar (tracks 4, 7), backing vocals (track 3)
• Harvey Burns – drums (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7), percussion (track 3)
• Peter Gabriel – flute (track 8)
• Del Newman – string arrangements (tracks 1, 2, 11)
• Paul Samwell-Smith - backing vocals (tracks 1, 3–5, 7, 11), vocal sound effect (track 10)

• Producer – Paul Samwell-Smith
• Engineer – Michael Bobak
• Mixing – Paul Hicks
• Supervisor – Bill Levenson
• Coordinator – Beth Stempel
• Mastering – Ted Jensen
• Design – Roland Young, Mike Diehl
• Illustrations – Cat Stevens
• Photography – Grazia Neri, Richard Stirling