Skip to main content

Why I Think Country Songs are Really About...Cats

Can you hear it? This cat could easily be channeling Hank Williams, Jr., "You'll cry and cry and try to sleep / But sleep won't come the whole night through / Your cheatin' heart will tell on you / When tears come down like falling rain / You'll toss around and call my name..."

Last night I was being kept awake all night by my five year old, who again had a nightmare and needed to climb into bed with me. It's not her presence in the bed on its own, it's the way she kicks, hard, especially in the kidneys and rear end. My husband and I greet each other groaning every morning after she visits. We've started stacking pillows around her, between her and us, to get some protection.

Neither of us are kickers, but we are still happy to blame each other's genetics for this child.

Anyway, so you know how when it's 3 a.m. and you are laying in bed, too alert to sleep, too sleepy to get up and your mind starts running around crazy topics because your eyes are too tired to open, much less focus on something like a book or TV show?

Yeah, so my mind was running, and the soundtrack/ear worm was this really silly country song and I don't even know where I've heard it.

I'm into jazz, blues, Motown, classic 70s rock, and singer/songwriter. Just ask iTunes, it knows. My vocal eight year old, who has lately roped her sister into block voting against me in the new minivan when it comes to music (how a new car has empowered my children I will never know -- I used to own the radio dial. I know what it is. Now that they have their own air conditioner controls and think they have a vote about other amenities in the car!)...anyway, my eight year old is into classical music so I'm forced to leave it on NPR (2 hours of news, classical music, two hours of news) all day. I like classical music, especially classical Spanish guitar, which we were treated to this morning. So don't get me wrong. I like it, especially a lot more than wailing children.

In fact, maybe the wailing children -- and since it is summer, they do wail a lot, and with all our extra summer quality time together, I get to hear more of it -- with their twangy, nasally sad song they sing too often, put me in mind of country music.

And maybe my mind was thinking about my kicking five year old which reminded me of the wailing from earlier that day which made me think of country music. Maybe that's how it happened. That made me think about Rascal Flatts and the time they ere on one of the CSIs and how that was the best part of the show, which really jumped the shark about three years ago. So then I was thinking more and more about country music, and that's when my cat jumped up and butted my hand for some love and affection.

I complied, of course, because the company was welcome, but more importantly, I am well trained. Cats do not take no for an answer. Cats hold all the power in the relationship. Cats keep and give and take at will, all while projecting a magical Zen quality. Cats love you and leave you.

Just like people in country songs! All those sad spurned lovers missing the object of their affection, empty and broken-hearted from pouring their all into a doomed affair, drowning in beer and crying for Jesus...it sort of seemed an apt description of my brain at, check the clock, 3:34 a.m.

In fact, when I thought about it...all of the country songs I could think of could just as easily be about cats as lost loves.

Consider "A Lover Spurned" by Marc Almond:
A passing phase
A week of love
But all at once
You had enough
It pales so soon
Waned with the moon
No deep concern
For a lover spurned
She'll destroy you with her little games
That could totally be my cat!

Or go back to Rascal Flatts, "What Hurts the Most"

What hurts the most
Is being so close
And havin' so much to say
(Much to say)
And watchin' you walk away

And never knowin'
What could've been
And not seein' that lovin' you
Is what I was tryin' to do, oh
Oh yeah
Except for the part that she didn't know that I was loving on her. She knew, that cat knew full well but once she had enough, she hopped off the bed and left! Just left me all alone in the dark at, check the clock, 3:41 a.m.

Just go find a country song, read the lyrics, and think "cat." It works, it really does. Also, it adds a level, just like when you add "in bed" to the end of every fortune cookie fortune.

Comments

Magpie said…
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time.
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine,
I walk the line
deborah said…
You are right on the money. My kitties OWN me. And I fear the country song....now I know why. Would love to write a longer response but I hear the kitties wailing for some attention. Gotta go. ;)
Julie Pippert said…
LOL! Maggie, that's perfect. See?!?! Point proven! Cash was channeling cats!

Deborah, lol, kitties rule.

Popular posts from this blog

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum

After being confronted with written evidence, Julie admits that she is a total attention whore. In some things, in some ways, sometimes I look outward for validation of my worth and existence. I admit it. It's my weak spot, my vanity spot . If you say I am clever, comment on a post, offer me an award, mention me on your blog, reply to a comment I left on your blog, or in any way flatter me as a writer...I am hopelessly, slavishly devoted to you. I will probably even add you to my blogroll just so everyone can see the list of all the cool kids who actually like me . The girl, she knows she is vain in this regard , but after much vanity discussion and navel-gazing , she has decided to love herself anyway, as she is (ironically) and will keep searching for (1) internal validation and (2) her first person . Until I reach a better point of self-actualization, though, may I just say that this week you people have been better than prozac and chocolate (together, with a side of white choc...

NEW and UNDISCOVERED BLOGGERS: I'll link you!

** Hey please come vote for this at SK*RT to get the word out! ** You know what? There are new bloggers out there. I know! NEWBIES. What's more...there are undiscovered bloggers, untapped wells of talent. But we don't know about you. I know, some people are shy, not really joiner types, don't prefer blog blasts or carnivals and so forth. So tell you what: I'll try to create a link list with some regularity. All you have to do is comment and let me know how to find you (aka paste in your link). Write a brief description of your blog, you know a couple of sentences a la "Hi I'm a mommyblogger from Detroit and I have two preschoolers who are very loud and creative, all funny stories on my blog!" or "I'm so deep I make Julie look shallow. If you wish you could have hung with Plato, come by my blog." or "I'm a guy who likes to talk about motorcycles." or "My blog is all about space exploration." And I'll link you. I...

Does the abstinence message for drug use work?

This past week I've made time to read up about social aspect awareness and education programs for young children in our public schools. My interest, of course, began with the red ribbon program , which I became alarmingly familiar with due to my daughter's negative experience . I read the Brain, Child article ( Scared Straight? Or Just Scared? Do elementary school anti-drug campaigns work? by Juliette Guilbert), which was excellent, as well as the research study that found the Boomerang effect of drug education and awareness programs that article cited (see a fact sheet that provides source citing for the University of Illinois article and also read the original Brain, Child article for more information). In short, our techniques are not working: "Levels of drug use did not differ as a function of whether students participated in D.A.R.E. Every additional 36 hours of cumulative drug education…were associated with significantly more negative attitudes towards police…m...