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# You Cannot Trust Your Own Memories
- URL: https://alxndrr.com/you-cannot-trust-your-own-memories/
- Published: 2025-04-16T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-04-16T00:00:00.000Z
- Author: Alex van der Weij
- Tags: Music

💬

Some posts were originally written in Dutch and were automatically translated.

The [Mandela effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False%5Fmemory?ref=alxndrr.com#Mandela%5Feffect) is genuinely fascinating. It is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers something that, in reality, is *completely* different.

For example, Darth Vader never said *"Luke, I am your father,"* but *"No, I am your father."* Mickey Mouse never wore suspenders, and the Monopoly guy does not have a monocle.

So you cannot trust your own memories...

Back to the early 2000s, when every morning started with me replacing the batteries in my Discman so I could listen to my self-burned CDs again. One of those many CDs also had a bunch of Cat Stevens/Yusuf songs on it. Songs like *Moonshadow*, *Wild World* and *Father and Son*.

Pure nostalgia in my head.

I wanted to make a nice playlist on Spotify, but I could not find the most beautiful Cat Stevens song anywhere. I searched for *Cat's in the Cradle* for hours. Was it an acoustic version I had on my Discman back then? A live recording that is not on Spotify? I could not even find anything on YouTube.

Why could I not find this beautiful piece of music anywhere?

Turns out, that song is not by Cat Stevens at all. It is by Harry Chapin.

Damn it, can I not even trust my own memories anymore?

Strange how something can sit in your head and memory with such conviction, while simply not being true at all.

And that song?

I threw it into my Cat Stevens/Yusuf playlist anyway, even though it is sung by someone else.