One Stage Before

The story behind *One Stage Before* takes us to a particular creative process of Al Stewart. It turns out he used to compose and record all the music and arrangements for his songs before even having a title for them. In fact, in a radio interview in Canada, he mentioned that he had followed this methodology on six of his albums, and that he often created up to four different versions of the lyrics for each musical piece. The song in question, *One Stage Before*, has its roots in a song that Stewart wrote in 1966, called *Foot of the Stage*.

This approach is part of the recording of the album Year of the Cat, released in 1976. The production and sound engineering were handled by Alan Parsons. The album, which reached the top five in the United States, was primarily driven by the single *Year of the Cat*, a piece co-written by Peter Wood. Another notable song from that album was *On the Border*, which reached number 47 in Canada. The duration of *One Stage Before* is 4:39.