Cat Stevens’ songs and a movie for sons who miss their dads

The first time I heard the song Father and Son was in 1995. It was the cover by Boyzone. The Irish group was in the midst of the boy band boom in that decade which was flush with teenybopper fads; girls were going gaga over these cutesy lads, while the boys were trying to mimic those (sometimes silly) dance steps to get the ladies’ attention.

Of course, the band’s members weren’t the original voices behind the song. British legend Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) had sung it. He who also gave us Wild World and Morning has Broken back in the 1970s. I didn’t know that till I started researching the song’s chords so I could play it on the guitar.

Twenty-two years later, the song crept back into my consciousness — and I found myself in something of a parallel universe.

Now, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 isn’t a film you’d expect in the final line-up of bestpicture nominees at the Oscars (though it has been nominated for Best Visual Effects; we’ll know tomorrow who wins). However, a number of films have those certain in-yourface scenes that will really ramp up that emotional meter within you. Case, er, scene in point: Yondu’s funeral. As the Guardians’ leader, Peter Quill, and the rest of the group stare at Yondu’s lifeless body — he sacrificed himself so that Quill could survive — he reflects on the impact Yondu had on his life.

Peter was kidnapped from Earth by Yondu and his Ravagers gang when he was a young boy, a fact the former hated because it swept him away from his dying mother — the only family he knew. His determination to search for his other parent apparently started at the end of the first film, when it was revealed that his father was ‘something very ancient… never seen here before’.

As Yondu’s funeral carries on, his fellow Ravagers show up — with Father and Son playing in the background through the entire thing. It was an emotional scene. I was fighting back tears and I’m not a guy who turns on the faucets often.

That state of parallelism hit me hard, for I never knew my father the way I had wanted to. Sure, he had been there, but his job — and other circumstances — forced him to be away from us more often than we’d want.

As a young man growing up, it used to pain me to imagine when would be the last time I would see my dad. That fear finally turned real in 2013 when he passed away. And we only found out about it a week after he was laid to rest.

Until now, I still feel that hole, as if I was gut-punched by some unknown foe, leaving me in a state of shock.

Back in the day, I had tried my best to talk to Dad, but there wasn’t conversation all the time. Yet I always remember him in tough situations: What would Dad do?

I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy, to be calm when you’ve found something going on, Cat Stevens sings in one of the ‘father’ parts of the song.

Makes me want to answer using one of the lines in a ‘son’ portion: How can I try to explain, when I do, he turns away again. It’s always been the same, same old story.

However, I never felt rejected. He was a man of a few words, and those words were meaty, full of meaning.

To borrow one of Peter’s lines during that scene, What I’m trying to say here is, sometimes that thing you’re searching for your whole life… it’s right there by your side all along. You don’t even know it.

At least in Marvel’s fictional universe, that was a fact: Peter had Yondu all along — and maybe he just refused to accept it, or it was too late to come to terms with it.

I never had that luxury. Yes, I did not get to speak to Dad that often when he was with us, but there arises another parallel: in the times I did, it was time well spent.

He was wise and inspiring. The few words I heard from him had a sense of assurance. Like, Son, I may not be here always, but I’ve got you covered; I have your back. I had that even though I didn’t have him as much as I would have wanted to.

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember the other parts of the movie; just this one scene. It’s akin to my wedding, which, in all honesty, I can’t remember the details of. I do though remember that it was a magical occasion that filled me with a feeling of love and mesmerises me time and again.

When life puts me through rough patches, I just remember Dad’s words. I don’t have to search. To paraphrase what Peter said, they’ve been there with me all this time. And that made me a winner all along.