Cat Stevens and 10,000 Maniacs

Cat Stevens (now Yusef Islam) was deported yesterday after landing in the U.S. with his daughter.

I distinctly remember a story where the 10,000 Maniacs album, I think "In My Tribe" that carried a wonderful version of "Peace Train", was later pulled. The story goes that after the release of the album, the whole Salman Rushdie controversy over "The Satanic Verses" came about. An Ayatollah in Iran put a fatwa (death sentence) on Rushdie. Cat Stevens then made some kind of public statement to the effect that he would pay for the killing, or in some way honor whomever did the killing.

Hearing this, Merchant and crew decided they did not want to be inadvertantly paying for Salman Rushdie's murder, pulled the track from all subsequent pressings of the album, and worked to squash it as a hit single - which it was on its way to becoming. It was a noble thing for the band to do, but remains bittersweet. Leaps and bounds beyond the original, the song was magnificent.