Stray Cat Strut

Cafe Society
21

Who cares about the words when that bass is strumming your heartstrings?

22

I hated hated the Dead Cats when they were new. They were the “rat rods” of the day: appropriating something that they didn’t understand, and got wrong.

Now that it has been longer between now and 1980 than it was between 1980 and the era of rockabilly, I have mellowed. Setzer’s Rockin’ Christmas Extravaganza is one of our yearly watches.

23

Maybe these are what 12tone calls “vibes lyrics.” Not a single narrative throughline so much as a bunch of thematically similar verbal phrases with good sound and attitude.

24

A dead cat bounce?

25

I don’t think they fit his criteria (as explained in this video starting at about 7:30):

I think the lyrics make perfect sense if you imagine the singer as a sort of cartoon character cat. Cartoon characters can freely mix and match human and animal characteristics.

26

The very notion of a mouse having a pet dog is offensive.

27

It would seem so!

I have so many Brian Setzer Orchestra CDs that I must have ten versions of Stray Cat Strut and Rock This Town. My twenty year old self would think I got brain damage.

28

They played in Boston on:

  • July 16, 1982 - Paradise
  • July 17, 1982 - Spit
  • Dec 16, 1982 - Metro
  • Jan 14, 1984 - Orpheum
  • Oct 12, 1986 - Axis
  • May 11, 1989 - Citi
29

I mean, everything in the OP pretty much describes Fritz the Cat….

30

I mean, everything in the OP pretty much describes Fritz the Cat….

I always imagined the song was about Top Cat.

31

He’s the boss, he’s the VIP, he’s the championship…

32

Well, he IS the most tip top.

33

I was today years old when I found out that Phil Silvers didn’t do Top Cat’s voice. It was Arnold Stang doing a Phil Silvers impersonation.

34

I don’t feel like I have too much to add to this thread, but I would like to just leave this picture.

It’s a solo front suspension part meant to be mated with a 1980’s Mercury Cougar:

35

IOW, a stray Cat strut. Well played.

36

Wasn’t there a Stray Cat Strut thread years ago that asked the question: just how much does it cost to rent a fence?

ETA: Now that I’ve read the lyrics, just what kind of cat goes Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night? Is he really a stray dog?

37

Isn’t Deadcats a different band?

38

You don’t understand Siamese cats, do you?
They howl, oh boy they howl!
:blush:

39

Even if you do not please.

40

A horny one.