My Top Ten Tribute To Molly Part 1: Cat Songs

We lost an important member of our family yesterday. Molly the cat... silky ears, twitching whiskers, inquisitive meow (not to mention a full-on demanding MOWRRRR at meal times).

I loved how you thought you were a human, not a silly cat. How you'd talk back. How you'd show workmen round the house and offer your opinion. How you'd never quite settle down, and if you did, that's when the claws would come out, milking us for warmth. How sometimes you'd sit with your tongue peeping out. How loud you could purr.

There are so many Molly stories I could tell. You were such an incredible character. The time you reached out through a barely open bedroom window and pulled in a bird. (That jingling collar we had to buy you must have sounded like the Jaws theme to the local avian gangs.) The way you just had to find a carpeted area to puke furballs onto: a nice, easy to clean kitchen floor was never good enough. The way you made me feel welcome in Louise's house the first time I visited. You were one of the friendliest cats I ever met. It was amusing watching neighbours and schoolkids stop outside the house to give you a stroke on their way home.

Many more stories, but I'm filling up at the typewriter so... another time, Mols.

I'll especially miss going out last thing at night to find you (usually scavenging round the back door of the nearby hotel, where you'd managed to sweet-talk the kitchen staff into feeding you scraps), then carrying you home on my shoulder, purring, claws catching in my jumper.


10.  Sonic Youth - Purr

I love you baby yeah, you're superfine
A-claw me down, too
A purring, whirring, fuzzy like today
Switching sunlight
I chase you kitten, catch you every time
Funny how it flies

9. Marc & The Mambas - Boss Cat

Molly was certainly the boss round here...

Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!

8. Paul Heaton - Life Of A Cat

Oh, for the life of a cat!

7. Squeeze - Cool For Cats

Not really about cats at all, but Molly was definitely too cool for school.

6. Ray Charles & Hank Williams Jr. - Two Old Cats Like Us

We've been down a whole lot of alleys
Shook a whole lot of cans
There ain't too much about prowlin' or howlin'
That we don't understand

Had a few doors slammed on our tails
We've been kicked and cussed
But everything's cool for two old cats like us

5. Colin Clary - Meow Meow

Excuse the early Christmas song, but this one always makes me think of Molly. This song's for life, not just for Christmas.

4. Billy Joel - Cat

Very early, very jazzy Billy. But so many of the lyrics are spot on...

She walks with a grace of a lion
Her eyes are the color of a shade gleam
She takes her pleasure in the nighttime
Absolutely unconcerned about anything

She’s a cat and she's as free as the wind
You never know what kind of trouble she’s in
She’s a cat
Rest assured that she doesn’t need you

3. Elvis Costello - Pads, Paws & Claws

Maybe Elvis's song isn't about an actual cat, but Molly was certainly a feline tormenter and she definitely did the pads, paws and claws routine.

2. Prefab Sprout - Farmyard Cat

But you can be the feline elite and still go scrounging scraps down a dead end street, Paddy.

I'll be back to talk in more detail about this song some other time.

1. The Cure - Love Cats

So wonderfully
Wonderfully
Wonderfully
Wonderfully
Pretty...

My Top Ten Molly Songs will follow very soon, obviously...