The Wind

Release date: June 5, 2020. ISRC: QZHN62052691. DK UPC: 195395734279. Label: 1803039 Records DK

Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Performed by Brian the Amateur

(Listen at the bottom of the page)

I literally learned guitar for this song specifically. 

I first heard the song at Season 7, Episode 23 of How I Met Your Mother, and I was grabbed immediately. I dreamed of being able to play this song, but then I didn’t even have a guitar. 

When I walked past Sam Ash in Ontario, that’s when I decided, I want a guitar, and I am going to learn this song. 

Then, I started learning guitar with Ryan at Guitar Center, and didn’t bring it up because I knew the fingerstyle playing in this song is incredibly hard; but after a few weeks, Ryan asked me if I wanted to play some specific song and I immediately said “The Wind”.

The first tabs I found online was from Songsterr, but it was more of a simplified version. Nevertheless, I started with Songsterr’s version, and after I stopped going to Guitar Center altogether, I figured out how to play the rest by myself, and have been practicing ever since. 

When I first recorded the song, it was a mess. Big mess. Words cannot describe how bad it was. Since my guitar is Acoustic-Electric, I tried to pick up the sound by plugging my guitar to a speaker and use my mic to record everything. However, if you have heard Cat Steven’s original song before knows that his playing carries a “muted” sound to it, and the speaker I had simply produced a very “unpleasant” and “unmuted” sound. I tried toying with the EQs, but whenever I reached the “muted” sound Cat Stevens had, it took away the higher-pitched sounds, so I gave up after a while. 

However, this first try got me thinking, there are two guitars in the song because it is impossible to pluck two notes on the same string; i.e., there is a background guitar constantly playing “C C G C, C C G C”. That’s when I decided to add another track just for the background guitar, and it immediately sounded a lot better. Also, when I was warming up, I recorded the guitar without plugging it into a speaker, and the muted sound followed. That’s when I noticed: oh, Cat Stevens probably didn’t use acoustic-electric to record back then. That’s how I recorded this later on. 

There was also the problem with the pitch. It was too low for my register, especially the “never” part in the middle. I originally recorded everything in Cat Steven’s original tone, and it failed horribly bad. That’s why I decided to bring up the pitch to +200, and it was high enough for me to get low enough. 

Since it was good enough for me, I recorded another version with Classical Guitar. Click to see more.