Artists
Musicians featured in this piece are:
Cat Stevens – lead vocals, guitar
Rick Wakeman – piano, arrangement
Traditional hymn (melody: “Bunessan,” a Scottish Gaelic tune), with lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon (1931); arranged and adapted by Cat Stevens and Rick Wakeman. Produced by Paul Samwell-Smith, recorded at Morgan Studios, London, 1971. Released on Teaser and the Firecat (Island Records, October 1971); reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the US Easy Listening chart in 1972.
Unlike almost everything else on Teaser and the Firecat, “Morning Has Broken” wasn’t written by Cat Stevens — it’s a 1931 hymn setting Eleanor Farjeon’s words to an older Scottish Gaelic melody. In its original hymnal form, the piece ran barely 40–45 seconds, far too short for an album track, so Stevens brought in Rick Wakeman, then a session musician who happened to be working at the same studio, to help flesh it out. Wakeman built the song’s now-signature piano intro, middle, and closing sections around a melodic idea he’d been developing for his own future solo album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Despite effectively co-writing the arrangement, Wakeman received no album credit and was paid only a standard session fee at the time — an omission Stevens (later known as Yusuf Islam) publicly acknowledged and made amends for decades later.
Cat Stevens – Morning Has Broken Lyrics
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the World
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dew fall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the One Light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s re-creation of the new day
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the World
To listen to other songs from the Teleskop 12 program and the full program, click here.