Stray Cat Strut

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@foolsguinea

Isn’t Deadcats a different band?

One is Deadcats, the other is Dead Cats. Totally different head. Totally.

[Lucas_Jackson]

@Beckdawrek

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

I have good sized ginger that can hold his own.

[solost]

@Little_Nemo

Get my dinner from a garbage can

These lines suggest that the singer is literally a stray cat. But the song also has these lines:

Ain’t got enough dough to pay the rent
I’m flat broke but I don’t care

@Cheesesteak

The shoe and garbage can dinners are metaphors for haters who don’t appreciate his lifestyle, and his relative poverty making meal planning a challenge.

I’m in the camp that most of the cat-related refs can be taken as metaphor, but if someone is so flat broke that they ain’t got enough dough to pay the rent, it’s not such a stretch to believe they may be literally getting their dinner from a garbage can.

Now that ‘Stray Cat Strut’ has been over-analyzed in 42 posts, if I may branch out into over-analyzing other songs…I was watching The Today Show this morning, and Carrie Underwood was on, performing a few of her hits. I’m not a big Country fan, but her music is so popular I’m aware of some of her hits, through pop osmosis (popmosis?).

In “Before He Cheats”, I just noticed that, in every line of the song character’s recounting of her man cheating in the verses, she repeatedly uses the qualifier word ‘probably’. As in:

Right now, he’s probably slow dancin’ with a bleach-blonde tramp
And she’s probably gettin’ frisky

Then the chorus is a detailed recounting of how she (actually, not probably) destroys his truck in revenge.

So, she has an extreme, violent, destructive reaction to what she’s only imagining that he’s done. He could be having an innocent guys’ night out, or even shopping for her birthday present, for all she actually knows. So clearly the first-person character in the song is actually a delusional, violent psychotic.

Then her first hit “Jesus Take the Wheel”-- it’s a nice metaphor for trusting in a higher power than yourself, right? Uh, no, the first verse describes a woman driving with a small child in the backseat who hits a patch of black ice and skids out of control. Does she, I don’t know, steer into the skid and gently tap the brakes until her tires hit pavement again, while asking Jesus for help? Noooo…

She threw her hands up in the air
Jesus, take the wheel

She literally gives up all control of her vehicle and asks a magical dead guy to save her. Good song advice!

[Little_Nemo]

@solost

I’m in the camp that most of the cat-related refs can be taken as metaphor, but if someone is so flat broke that they ain’t got enough dough to pay the rent, it’s not such a stretch to believe they may be literally getting their dinner from a garbage can.

But the singer is relating these events in a cocky attitude. It’s true some people might be eating out of garbage cans but I can’t see them bragging about it.

[Fear_the_Turtle]

@BlankSlate

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?

A cat that turns into a weredog

[solost]

@Little_Nemo

But the singer is relating these events in a cocky attitude. It’s true some people might be eating out of garbage cans but I can’t see them bragging about it.

There’s an ideological movement called 'Freeganism’ that’s anti-consumerism and anti-waste, in which dumpster diving for wasted food is part. Maybe the singer is a proud proto-Freegan. And hey, I’ve heard some of the uneaten food that restaurants throw out is actually still pretty good.

[Thudlow_Boink]

Heck, Oscar the Grouch has unapologetically lived in a garbage can for decades.

[solost]

@Thudlow_Boink

Heck, Oscar the Grouch has unapologetically lived in a garbage can for decades

Soon to be a major motion picture starring David Harbour