Perhaps the most famous Cat Song is The Siamese Cat Song recorded by
Peggy Lee. The song is from the Walt Disney 1955 classic "The Lady and
The Tramp", an animated film about a classy Cocker Spaniel named Lady
who falls for Tramp a scamp of a mongrel. The song however is about two
arrogant cats, Si and Am, who have given Siamese cats a bad name ever
since.
The Siamese Cat Song was penned by Lee along with Sonny Burke and over
the years has also been recorded by Freddie and The Dreamers, Mitch
Miller, Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin, Haylie Duff, and Bobby
McFerrin. "We are Siamese if you please, We are Siamese if you don't
please."
Both The Turtles and Petula Clark stepped into recording studios to
make very different versions of The Cat in the Window, a song that
compares a cat trying to get out of a window with the singer wanting to
fly away. "There's a cat in the window, and he's watching all the birds
go passing by, he'd love to fly out the window, go where the wind goes,
and so would I."
Who can forget the Muppets recording of The Cat Came Back, a song about
a kitty that just kept finding its way back no matter how far it was
taken from home. "But the cat came back, she wouldn't stay away, she
was sitting on the porch the very next day."
In 1950 folks were flooding into record stores and asking for I Tawt I
Taw a Puddy Tat. Mel Blanc recorded the song, written by Alan
Livingston, Billy May and Warren Foster, about the cartoon cat and
canary duo Sylvester and Tweety. "I tawt I taw a puddy tat a creeping
up on me, I did I taw a puddy tat as plain as he could be."
The Rooftop Singers followed up their 1963 number one hit Walk Right
In, with Tom Cat a ditty about 'Ringtail Tom' who liked to go
"strutting round the town" "And when he steps out all the other cats in
the neighborhood they begin to shout." Fast forward to 1981 and the
Stray Cats record a musically different song but with a very similar
theme, the rockabilly Stray Cat Strut. "Stray cat strut, I'm 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."
Norma Tanega apparently owned a cat that she named 'Dog' and liked to take that
cat for walks, hence her 1966 hit Walking My Cat Named Dog, which does
seem to be about her real life experience of strolling around town with
her pet feline.
Most songs though that include the word Cat in the tile, are not truly
about cats at all. A great example is the fine song, Cats in the Cradle
by Harry Chapin. No cats make an appearance in this song instead the
lyrics contain a very chilling message that every dad should pay heed
too.
Bent Fabric, real name Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, had a hit in 1962 with
Alley Cat, but this was an instrumental recording so it's not a song
about cats. Instrumental too was Aaron Copeland's The Cat and the Mouse.
Cat People (Putting Out Fire) by David Bowie was recorded for the 1982
remake of the film Cat People. Great dark and menacing feel to the song
but the words have no relationship to cats.
The cat in The Cat Crept In, recorded by Mud was actually a girl, as
was the cat featured in The Rolling Stones' Stray Cat Blues, this one
with exceedingly sharp claws.
They Call Her the Cat, by Elton John is about, well it's not about
cats! Neither is Honky Cat, another Elton tune, that one is about a
country boy moving to live life in the city.
Three Cool Cats, is a song that was first recorded by the Coasters in
1958 and covered by The Beatles in 1962 (but not released until 1995.)
Of course this song is not about cats, but about three teenage boys and
three teenage girls. The Beatles also recorded Little Willie John's
Leave My Kitten Alone, no surprise to find that the song is not about a
kitten.
U2 recorded a song titled An Cat Dubh, which apparently means The Black Cat in
Gaelic, no cat in the song though, black or otherwise.
No cats are in Year of the Cat by Al Stewart, Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent,
The Lovecats by The Cure or in Cool for Cats by Squeeze. Who can say what The
Cat's In the Well by Bob Dylan is about?
There must be countless other songs that have the words Cat, or Cats,
in the title but are not actually about our feline friends. No doubt
there are more songs that are about cats than those listed on this
page, but those songs sadly seem few and far between.
But wait . . . wasn't there a stage musical all about cats. Cats, the musical by
Andrew Lloyd Webber, was first shown in London, England in 1981. Based upon T.
S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats the show features song
after song about . . . Old Gumbie, Grizabella, Mungojerrie And
Rumpelteazer, Skimbleshanks, Old Deuteronomy, Gus, Macavity, and Mr.
Mistoffelees. All of these characters are, of course, . . . Cats.
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