Oh Very Young
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Oh Very Young" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Cat Stevens | ||||
| from the album Buddha and the Chocolate Box | ||||
| B-side | "100 I Dream" | |||
| Released | March 1974 | |||
| Recorded | February 1974 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock, pop rock | |||
| Length | 2:39 | |||
| Label | Island (UK/Europe) A&M (US/Canada) | |||
| Songwriter | Cat Stevens | |||
| Producers | Paul Samwell-Smith, Cat Stevens | |||
| Cat Stevens singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| All Music Guide |   link |
"Oh Very Young" is a song composed by Cat Stevens. It was released on his 1974 album Buddha and the Chocolate Box, as well as several later "Best of..." and "Greatest Hits" albums.[1] The song reached number 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100[2] and number two Easy Listening.[3]
It spent 15 weeks in the Australian KMR Top-100 chart, peaking at #19 after entering on 13th May 1974.[4]
It was also used in the film version of The Thursday Murder Club.
On his website djallyn.org, DJ Ally posted the following about "Oh Very Young" on April 30, 2009:
Its lyric is a gentle response to Don McLean's hit "American Pie" released two years previously. Like McLean, he stops short of mentioning Buddy Holly directly, but questions the ill-fated songwriter's "Not Fade Away" (the last song Holly performed) lyric "a love to last more than one day, a lover's love, not fade away" with Stevens' own "denim blue, fading up to the sky, and though you want him to last forever you know he never will, and the patches make the goodbye harder still". Stevens then mentions the young American's mould-breaking work "Words Of Love" in the line "will you carry the words of love with you, will you ride the great white bird into heaven, and though you want to last forever you know you never will, and the goodbye makes the journey harder still."
