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I always have an ear open for a great, new (or old) tune I’ve never heard before. You can never tell where it will come from. Many times before I’ve told stories about the odd circumstances under which a cool song with an interesting backstory has come to my attention. Here’s another one.

A few weeks ago I was invited to a cocktail party in San Francisco’s Mission district by my cousin Emilia V. She’s the event planner for a lifestyle website (1stdibs.com).

While mingling at the party I met one of her colleagues and quickly learned we share a passion for music. He told me he’d heard about a Cat Stevens song that was based on nothing more than a “ping pong” effect and asked if I’d ever heard of it. He’d never heard it and didn’t know the title.

Now I’m quite familiar with Cat Stevens work and this didn’t sound even vaguely familiar to me. So I dug into my “still haven’t listened to” box of records and found two Cat Stevens’ albums – Foreigner and Izitso.

I put Izitso onto the turntable first because it had two instrumentals. When I heard “Was Dog a Doughnut?” on side two, I knew I found what I was looking for.

“Dog…” is an interesting electro pop instrumental that doesn’t sound like anything you would associate with Stevens. Not only is it different, it is funky, especially for its time.

I did a little internet research on the song and found this great article from May 2015 by Christine Kakaire for Red Bull Music Academy Daily. The back story on the record is fascinating. I’d hate to simply paraphrase the whole thing for you here, so I highly suggest you click through to learn all about the song, equipment used and its influence on contemporary electronic and hip hop music.

Christine Kakaire – Key Tracks Cat Steven’s “Was Dog a Doughnut?”

Enjoy… until next week.