The 30 Best Songs About Cats

By Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

The Romans believed that cats could see ghosts. In Aztec and Mayan folklore, cats were esteemed as guides to the underworld. For the Greeks, cats shared a cosmic connection with the lunar cycle. In 16th century England, people were convinced that if a cat jumped over a human corpse, the deceased person would turn into a vampire. All of this stuff is true, of course. Cats are the coolest, smoothest, most mysterious members of the animal kingdom. (Their aloof indifference to you and your boring human bullshit is a theme of Ricky Gervais’ popular new animated Netflix show, Alley Cats.) That regal status is why songwriters in every musical genre love a good cat metaphor — whether it’s Elton John in “Honky Cat,“ the Grateful Dead in “China Cat Sunflower,” or Prince in “Velvet Kitty Cat.” So here are our 30 favorite cat songs of all time, from jazz to rockabilly to R&B to pop, from the 1970s soft rock of Al Stewart to the Greenwich Village folk of Phoebe Buffay. To quote the artist at Number 15, karma is a cat. Let’s meow it up.

• Jethro Tull, ‘…And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps’ (1978)

  Image Credit: Brian Cooke/Redferns/Getty Images

  The English prog-rock band’s 11th album, Heavy Horses, was inspired by leader Ian Anderson’s life on his new country estate. For the rustic rocker “….And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps,” he salutes his cat Mistletoe, who must’ve had the mice around the place on constant high alert: “With claws that rake a furrow red/Licensed to mutilate,” Anderson sings. The end of the song turns its title into a scary, growled chant, enough to make any rodent scurry for the next farm.—Jon Dolan