![]() ![]() I wish I could be as carefree and wild, but I got cat class and I got cat style. I don't bother chasing mice around I slink down the alley looking for a fight Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night Singin' the blues while the lady cats cry, "Wild stray cat, you're a real gone guy." Stray cat strut, I'm a ladies' cat, A feline Casanova, hey man, thats where its at Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man Get my dinner from a garbage can The band tour Europe and the US in July and August.Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Black and orange stray cat sittin' on a fence Ain't got enough dough to pay the rent I'm flat broke but I don't care I strut right by with my tail in the air I had a weimaraner.Ĥ0 by Stray Cats, their first album in 26 years, is out on Surfdog Records. The name Stray Cats was a nod to Elvis Presley, the “hillbilly cat”, and how the early rockers called each other “cats”. It didn’t sound like an old rockabilly record but had the same essence: a song you could crank up on a car radio. Our first hit, Runaway Boys, documented what we were going through. We ended up on Arista, who put us in the studio with Dave Edmunds – he knew everything about the original rockabilly but also understood that the kids wanted heroes from their own peer group and that we needed a contemporary sound. We almost signed to Rolling Stones Records, but it was hard to get those guys in the same place. The Rolling Stones all came to see us and poured us champagne. The Stray Cats on stage at the Markthalle in Hamburg in 1981, with Brian Setzer singing and Slim Jim Phantom in the background. Once the music press started writing about us, everything happened like wildfire. ![]() The original group of people that came to see us included Chrissie Hynde, Joe Strummer, Lemmy and Glen Matlock – a gang of all the hipsters in London. I wish I could be as carefree and wild, But I got cat class and I got cat. We got on a plane wearing all our gear and found this whole counterculture in London. Singin the blues while the lady cats cry, Wild stray cat, youre a real gone guy. ![]() We wrote Rumble in Brighton about mods and rockers on Brighton beach having never been there – but we were keen to visit. We avidly read the British music press and felt more comradeship with British youth culture. In 1979, we were playing two sets a night in Long Island but people on the street were hostile: “Who are you looking at?” Nobody looked like us then. ![]() Years later he told me: “I only did it for the photos, man.” I’d seen pictures of their drummer, Dickie Harrell, playing drums standing up, so I played like that too. We modelled the band on Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps. Brian and I shared a flat and combing our hair became a daily drill. Then I got the clothes from a thrift store. When I first heard rockabilly, I sprayed my hair with Elnette into a quiff so hard it felt frozen. James McDonnell, AKA Slim Jim Phantom, drummer I played the guitar solo out of thin air, on the spot, probably thinking: “I wanna to do something that will bend your ear, something unexpected.” It’s crazy that it’s become one of the most famous solos ever. I was a big fan of the cartoon TV series, Top Cat. The line about a “feline Casanova” depicts a wise-guy cat. I sang “Black and orange stray cat sittin’ on a fence” because I had a black and orange cat sticker on my guitar. At that point, we were still called the Tomcats, but it became “stray” when we went to London, because we had wandered. What song will you find on Lyrics Playground today STRAY CAT STRUT Stray Cats Oooooooh Black and orange stray cat sittin on a fence Aint got enough dough. It’s about us three guys, and the lives we were living. I wanted something slower than our other songs. I came up with Stray Cat Strut back in our garage in Long Island when I was 18. ![]()
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