Maxi Priest was on the radio Wednesday, at work singing "wild world". A friend asked me "do you know who wrote this"? Cat Stevens, I replied. No he said, it was Jonathan King. No matter how much I argued, he insisted that you wrote it. Can you confirm it was not you. I`ll print it and take it in work on Monday. Thanks for the music...KARL

`tis probably best to not ask the board host about that tune and it`s history with him!


I adore Maxi Priest though, what a brilliant voice. Whilst on reggae (which I love), am I alone in finding it incredibly hard to source in the shops these days?
I even had to buy a Steel Pulse cd from ebay or face a long ordering wait from a chain store.
I adore Maxi, he is an unsung great.

This is the story Karl.

Cat Stevens wrote it. Indeed, in the 60s we were best friends and many of his greatest songs were first heard by myself as he sat on the floor of this very room with his guitar and sang them to me.

Sometimes I went to his little flat (a room above his parents restaurant off Shaftsbury Avenue that he was very proud of) and he played me works in progress.

One day in the 80s the Pet Shop Boys had a smash with a song called It's A Sin and I wrote in my Sun column that I thought it very similar melodically to Wild World.

They sued me so I recorded Wild World with the It's A Sin arrangement to illustrate my point (you can hear it on my box set of 8 CDs). That's probably why your friend thought I wrote it.

They dropped the law suit when I met them on Concorde and they turned out to be nice queens and discovered I was a nice queen too.

I can recall (i think, time has a way of altering ones memory!!) you gave " West End Boys " a scathing review after it reached number 1. Could have been a case of sour grapes. Hey ho.