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Comment by moomin | Hacker News Reader

Contemporaries* of Cat Stevens, Richard and Linda Thompson also converted to Islam. In their case, however they continued to make music. Notably the first album produced after conversion is pretty much all about God and its cover art is a picture of Richard wearing a turban.

I find it interesting to contrast the joy of a track like "Night Comes In" with how humourless Cat Stevens became.

*although they never met to my knowledge

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Richard Thompson converted to Sufi Islam, which might as well be a different religion.

If I'm not mistaken, Sufi Islam was pretty much mainstream Islam until the Saudis started pushing Wahhabism with their petrodollars.

...with our petrodollars

No. __Their__ petrodollars. It's their oil. The demand for their oil doesn't just come from America. In fact, America isn't even the largest individual buyer of Saudi crude and constitutes a small percentage of total destination of their crude.

I think he was referring to OPEC pricing oil exclusively in US dollars.

There is pressure by some oil-producing countries (notably Iran and Venezuela) to sell in a currency other than USD for political reasons.

Still doesn't make it "America's" money (which the previous poster was implying). If anything, pricing the worlds energy in dollars (and thereby ensuring that the global demand for $'s remains high) allows the US Fed to get away with "printing money" as much as they do, without totally debasing their currency.

It's interesting to note how Iraq's threat to start pricing oil in other currencies (was it the Euro they mentioned?) is widely regarded as one of the precursors to America's invasion and occupation.

So those "political reasons" you're alluding to work both ways.

Not the only way Stevens compares unfavourably with Richard Thompson, but RT does a good line in non-joyful, as generally appreciated by English folkies even if it isn't a murder ballad. The Spooky Men, who he may have encountered, certainly maintained their humour after going Sufi <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqBQFce1I7o>

I think I would have been disappointed if the composer of Withered and Died and End of the Rainbow started thinking everything was awesome after conversion. His miserabilist streak is one of the things I like about him.

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