I sing to my cats. I probably do this more than the cats or the husband would like, but I can’t help it! The cats are so cute that I find all other forms of expression pale. My two catsong greatest hits are as follows:
Little Miss Kitten Paws (to the tune of “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” by the Spin fucking Doctors):
Little miss little miss little miss Francie Paws!
Little miss little miss little miss Sample Paws!*
Throw Your Paws (to the tune of “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child):
All my kitties!
Livin’ with me!
Throw your paws up at me!
And here is a new song that my friend J sang to his cat, called “Smashing Brenda” (to the tune of “Flight of the Valkyries” by Richard Wagner):
Brenda, I’m coming to smash you
Coming to smash you
COMING TO SMAAASH YOUUUU.**
So… what songs do you sing to your wee loved ones
ETA! I forgot one of my favorites and most regular catsongs. One of Sample’s many nicknames is “Mrs. Merps” (so we can play Jane Austin Tea Party and practice our manners together) so I often sing Mistadobalina by Del The Funky Homosapien except like:
Mrs. Merpalina, Mrs. Merp Merpalina
Ohhh you’re stupid! Mrs. Merp Merpalina
Ooo ooo Mrs. Merpalina
*I adopted Sample when she was four and she came with the name and I have no idea what it means or where it came from but it totally and completely fits her.
**Smash with love and affection, of course.
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May 2, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Meowser
Oh, I’m even sillier than you. Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City” has become “You Belong to the Kitty,” with lyrics like:
You were born a soft kitty
Litterbox under your feet
It’s in your fur
It’s in your purr
You’re just sickeningly sweet
Or, how about Dee Clark’s “Hey Little Girl,” turning into (since my cats are males): “Hey little boy in the furry sweater/I only wish I could pet you better.”
And yeah, they look at us real funny when we do that stuff, don’t they?
May 2, 2008 at 5:02 pm
phledge
All the girls get “You Are My Sunshine,” with their names replacing the word sunshine. Two of them have names with only one syllable, so they get amended from Mu to Musa and Fish to Fishy. Gadget doesn’t change until the middle of the song: “You’ll never know, Gadge, how much I lo-o-ve you…”
Also, and this is insane x more numbers than I can count, there was a song on a Grinch Halloween special that went a little something like “Ukariah, Ukariah, Grinch is gonna get you, Grinch is gonna get you” which in my household becomes “Musafina, Musafina, Mama’s gonna get you, Mama’s gonna get you.”
Mu (pronounced “mew”) was named by a colleague’s children; when I took her from them I changed it to a proper scientific name.
May 2, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Piffle
I don’t sing to my cat(s); but all my kids got two or three little ditties of their own when they were babies and didn’t care that I couldn’t hold a tune.
May 2, 2008 at 6:10 pm
peggynature
omg I do this too. I’m glad to share my shameful secret with others who share the same affliction.
I start off by inserting my cat’s name (Mokie) into songs, randomly, but eventually it devolves until the entire song consists of my cat’s name, repeated over and over again.
Do they sell prescription medication for this problem?
May 2, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Twistie
I am given to singing a particularly grotesque musical oddity to my cat: Poor Kitty Popcorn by Henry Clay Work. To put this in perspective, Work was one of the most popular tunesmiths around the time of the Civil War and responsible for such offences against good taste as Father, dear Father, come home with me now. Poor Kitty Popcorn shows clearly that Work had never met a cat in his life. It tells the tragic tale of the brave volunteer in the Union army whose cat FOLLOWS HIM SELFLESSLY OFF TO WAR. Then, when his master is tragically killed in action, Popcorn stays steadfastly by his master’s side until he is frozen to death in a snowstorm. There are few songs that can make me laugh harder. The chorus goes like this:
Poor kitty Popcorn
Buried in the snowdrift now
Nevermore shall be the music of his charming song
Meow-ow-ow-ow-ow
Nevermore shall be the music of his charming song
Meow-ow-ow-ow.
My cat generally reacts with a world-class case of stinkeye. Heh heh.
May 2, 2008 at 8:28 pm
OTM
Poor Kitty Popcorn reminds me of a song my dad used to sing about a man who was trying to dump a cat using a variety of increasingly more intense methods (including, IIRC, using the cat for ballast in an “outer space balloon”), but the cat kept coming back. The chorus went:
But the cat came back
The very next day
yes the cat came back
for he wouldn’t stay away.
Meow, kitty
Meow so pretty
Meow it’s such a pity but the cat came back.
I’m totally LOLing at Glen Frey. “You were born a soft kitty…” hahaha
May 3, 2008 at 5:33 am
mrs.millur
There’s this old-school traditional hymn, “He who would valiant be”. It sometimes gets de-gendered in newer books to “Ye who would valiant be”.
In my house, it’s “Ruthie, who would valiant be”
Or sometimes, St. Patrick’s Breastplate; “I bind unto my Ruthie today the strong name of the Trinity”.
More than pop tunes, this is the music that got into my head and stayed- I am who I am.
I don’t sing to the cat. He’s just not that sort of cat.
May 3, 2008 at 11:29 am
buffpuff
I sing to my cats, Wattie and Dweezil, constantly. They seem to quite like it though they could just be humouring me.
Peggynature, I do that “entire song consisting of my cat’s name, repeated over and over again” thing too! Wattie often gets the William Tell Overture, (Wattie-Watts Wattie-Wats Wattie-Watts-Watts-Watts…),whereas Dweezil, (aka The Dweedlin’ Cat), tends to have proper songs, discussing his life and finer features. Sung to the tune of ‘Lazy Bones’, for instance:-
Saw a sign,
‘Kittens Ready Now’
Got myself a Dweezil,
Goes “Wa-Ow!”
Dweedlin’ cats are so much fun
Pity that there’s only one
At the moment, the Goldfrapp song ‘Little Bird’ is in the throws of being adapted,
He is the bubba Dweez.
He sits upon my knees.
He ain’t got any fleas.
He loves to eat raw peas.
He is the Dweezie-chu,
He’s full of derring-do.
Unlike me and you
He’s got Cat Stuff to do.
Dweezie-bub bub bub
Dweezie-bub-bub-bub
Bub-bub bub-bub
He is the bubba Watts,
He smacks the Dweez a lot…
Um - that’s as far as I’ve got. Which is probably a good thing…
May 3, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Rachel
I make up my own random songs of silliness to my cats, particularly the big fat orange one I raised since he was one week old. I love all my cats, but there’s something to bottle feeding a cat that makes me have a particular fondness for him as my “baby.” Plus, his fatness just makes him all that much more cuddly.
We nicknamed Chloe, the kitten we got in June, “little cat” and the name has stuck. So I do sing “I love my little cat, little cat, little cat, little cat…” to the tune of the Austin Powers Fast Bastard song “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back…”
My husband wants me to let everyone know that he does not sing to the cats. Ever.
May 4, 2008 at 9:16 am
AndyJo
We try to find theme songs for ours…
My old cat Trouble (who lived to be 21 and went to the mousehunt in the sky 4 years ago) had as his theme song “Night and Day” by Cole Porter…
Buster (who is blind and deaf and never was the sharpest knife in the drawer even when he wasn’t blind — always been deaf) has “Polka Dots and Moonbeams”. Another old standard (but I’m forgetting the composer).
Pepe (who lived to 19 and passed 2 years ago) had as his theme song a Polish nursery rhyme “A A Kotky Dwa” dealing with little gray kittens. I have no idea what all the words meant but my husband used to sing it to him if he was scared or stressed and it helped a bunch.
We’re still looking for consistent theme songs for the others (4 more — Persephone, Billyfish, Wilson, and Romeo), but my husband makes up little nonsense songs for them randomly from time to time. So cute!!!
–AndyJo–
May 5, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Charlotte
I’ve never sung to my cats. But this post makes me think of my mom because she makes up songs and sings them to me when I’m at home. :)
May 10, 2008 at 5:22 pm
sweetmachine
I’m late to this thread, but I definitely sing to my cats — only I make up songs on the spot instead of inserting their names into real songs. Most of the songs are ephemeral, but one has stuck around:
My name’s Moxie
I’m a little kitty
Everybody loves me
Because I’ve got two ears
The poor scansion and non-rhyme of the last line cracked me and my partner up so much the first time I sang it that we kept repeating it back to each other and now it’s stuck. (Of course, I also sing songs about my partner, most famously the “My name’s John” song. I bet you can guess its lyrics.)
May 14, 2008 at 1:19 pm
JW
Awww, kittysongs! I make up nonsense songs, like Rachel.
Chester Pester
Cat Molester
He’s a boy with soft orange fur!
Mr. Bubbles
Fuzzy Wubbles
Brownie has the bestest purr!
Little Footie
Is so bite-y
Makes her mommy growl and grrr!
Et cetera.
July 12, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Jess
OH MY GOSH.
I sing Mistadobalina to my cat! ALL the time. He loves it! I doctor it to fit his name, but yeah.