The Sound of Mew-sic

Four mornings ago I was awakened by country music at 5:30. It sounded like it was playing on the street or downstairs in my house. I put on a bathrobe and padded downstairs. The radio/CD player was tuned to a Christian country station. The player remote control, instead of being on top of the radio as usual, was on the sofa cushion. Chloe lay, curled up beside it, seemingly asleep. I turned off the radio and padded upstairs for another short nap before the alarm clock rang.

The next morning, I was awakened again by Reverend Bob, the D.J. for the Christian Country network. “That’s odd,” I thought. My sleep-addled brain remarked that both this day and the one before, Chloe had left my bed and headed downstairs shortly before the music began. This time, the remote was back on top of the radio where I had placed it the day before, but Chloe lay on the sofa, eyes shut to contented slits, listening to the mellifluous voice of Reverend Bob announcing another song.

I’m a slow learner. It was the third morning before I figured out that Chloe had somehow programmed the remote to have the clock radio start playing the Christian country station at 5:30, a few minutes after she padded downstairs to take her seat on the sofa. That evening I discovered I had misplaced the radio instruction booklet and couldn’t figure out how to de-program the radio. I turned down the volume instead, hoping beyond hope that Chloe can’t figure out how those buttons work.

This experience got me to thinking about cat-themed music. I’ve read a number of articles about cats and music. Most researchers and cat owners seem to feel that cats like classical music. I’ve tried Mozart, Hayden, Telemann and Vivaldi. Neither Annie nor Chloe seem interested in the least. They aren’t affected at all by jazz, New Age,  or world music. I even tried a sample from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. No response. What, other than the music from Cats, are some famous cat-themed songs?

Most songs with the word "cat" in the title aren’t really about cats. “The Ballad of Cat Ballou”, for instance, is an Oscar-nominated theme song for a 1965 Western about a schoolmarm, Cat Ballou, who becomes an outlaw. “Three Cool Cats,” a 1958 song about three guys looking for three girls. In 1962, the original Beatles, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Peter Best, recorded “Three Cool Cats” and thirteen other songs as a demo for Dacca records. Decca rejected the group, a decision I’m sure their management sorely regretted in the following years.  Here’s a link to the recording for those interested in hearing the very early, pre-Ringo Beatles:

Some songs about cats, like those about dogs, are aimed at children. The two best known are both embedded in animated films. Both feature sinister felines. “I Tot I Taw a Puddy Tat” is part of a 1947 Tweety and Sylvester animated short in which Sylvester the cat attempts to catch and eat a canary named Tweety Bird, a Warner Brothers Looney Tunes production. The 1955 Disney animated movie "Lady and the Tramp" features two Siamese cats, Si and Am attempting to steal a goldfish from the Cocker Spaniel, Lady, in the song “We are Siamese if you Please.” While both are generally viewed as humorous children’s ditties, I remember seeing them both at different times as a child and finding them rather menacing since the cats in both are devious, amoral, homicidal creatures. Neither cartoon would encourage me to want a kitten! Here they are for you to enjoy (or find unsettling). In watching them again as an adult, I still see them as more sinister than humorous.

Equally unsettling for different reasons is the children’s song, “The Cat Came Back,” a comic song written in 1893 but still sung today in different versions, about attempts to abandon or kill a cat which backfire with gruesome results on the perpetrators.

            None of these numbers are suitable for Annie and Chloe who would either find them as disturbing as I do or else would choose to emulate the homicidal Siamese couple, Si and Am. So are there any cat songs I like and would share with my feline companions?

            In 1981, the British rockabilly band, Stray Cats, released "Stray Cat Strut" on its premiere album, a song about a black and orange Tom who is

“. . . a ladies' cat,
A feline Casanova, hey man, that’s where it’s at
Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man
Get my dinner from a garbage can.”

It reminds me of one of my favorite literary cats, the redoubtable Mehitabel.
Here’s a very funny You Tube music video (sorry about the advertisement) featuring a wonderful guitar riff.

            Given my love of all forms of jazz including ragtime and stride, here’s a favorite of mine, "Kitten on the Keys,” by Zez Confrey, released in 1921 and a staple of player piano rolls.

              The great doctor, organist, and theologian, Albert Schweitzer once wrote, “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” But as my experience with Chloe and the radio has shown me: "Not at the same time, Herr Doktor! Not at the same time!"