# In 1966, Yusuf/Cat Stevens stole a song from a jazz artist to start his career. In 1978, he stole from him again

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1966-yusuf-cat-stevens-stole-a-song-from-a-jazz-artist-to-start-his-career-in-1978-he-stole-from-him-again/
- Published: 2026-11-14T15:30:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-14T16:26:54+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/i1966-cat-stevens-stole-a-song-from-a-jazz-artist/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Stevens based ‘I Love My Dog’ on a melody by Yusef Lateef.
- The 1966 single was Stevens’ first to chart.
- Stevens later acknowledged the borrowing and paid royalties.

## Summary

Yusuf/Cat Stevens has said that the melody of his 1966 single ‘I Love My Dog’ came from Yusef Lateef’s 1961 jazz composition ‘The Plum Blossom’. The song was Stevens’ first charting single and helped bring him to wider attention; he later acknowledged the borrowing and paid Lateef royalties.

In a 2017 interview, Stevens described Lateef’s album *Eastern Sounds* as one of his favourites and said he could not get the melody out of his mind. The article also notes that Stevens adopted the name Yusuf Islam in 1978, the same first name as Lateef, who had embraced Islam earlier; it presents this as a coincidence rather than another act of copying.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.