Songs Of The Cat Garrison Keillor

What You Actually Get With Songs Of The Cat

It is a 2009 release from Garrison Keillor that pairs a book with a CD of cat-themed songs performed by him. The concept is straightforward. He collected songs about cats from American folk traditions, wrote some original material, and recorded it all in a single sitting at the station where he spent most of his career. The result is not a deep academic study of feline music. It is a lighthearted, mildly sentimental collection aimed at people who already enjoy his particular brand of Midwest nostalgia. The CD runs about 45 minutes and includes tracks like "The cat came back to Kitty," "Nine lives," and "Grumpy old cats." He performs most of them himself with minimal accompaniment. The book contains lyrics, some background notes, and illustrations. If you are looking for a scholarly treatment of how cats have influenced American folk music, this is not it.

Songs Of The Cat Garrison Keillor

Here is where most people run into trouble. You go looking for the digital download and the licensing is messy. The album was released through Public Radio International and distributed via traditional retail channels, which means you will find it on Amazon, Bandcamp, and Spotify under slightly different listings depending on which platform you use. Sometimes it is listed as an album. Sometimes it shows up as a spoken word release. I lost twenty minutes once searching under just "Garrison Keillor cats" because the metadata was that inconsistent. The reliable way to find it is to search the exact title "Songs of the Cat" with the release year 2009. On streaming platforms, look for the cover art showing a cartoon cat. That eliminates the false positives from his earlier comedy albums and the Prairie Home Companion compilations that come up first in most searches.

How the Recordings Were Made

The sessions took place at WLOL in Minneapolis, which was Keillor's home station for decades. He worked with a small ensemble, mostly acoustic guitar and occasional percussion. The production style is deliberately bare. There is no studio polish. You can hear room noise between tracks, someone clearing a throat during a transition, the slight hum of fluorescent lights in the background. This was intentional. Keillor has always favored a live, conversational feel over manufactured sound, and this project follows that same approach. One detail people miss: several of the traditional songs on the album were arranged by someone else before Keillor recorded them. The arrangement credits appear in small print in the booklet but are easy to overlook. If you are trying to figure out why a particular version of "My Little Cornpone Kitty" sounds different from the version your grandmother knew, check the arranger name rather than assuming Keillor wrote every chord progression himself.

What Actually Works Well

The best tracks are the ones where Keillor leans into the humor instead of pretending the material is serious. "Grumpy Old Cats" stands out because he commits fully to the deadpan delivery. The pacing feels natural, like he is telling you about his neighbor's cat rather than performing a song about one. The accompanying illustrations in the book also help. They are simple line drawings that match the tone without overthinking it. From a practical standpoint, if you want to use any of these recordings for a podcast intro or background music, you need to go through proper licensing channels. Public Radio International controls the rights, and the licensing process is not instant. Expect a response within a few business days, and be prepared to specify exactly how you plan to use the track. Vague requests like "I want to use it in my content" tend to get slower replies than detailed ones that include platform, audience size, and duration.

Where It Falls Apart

The album has a real consistency problem in the middle section. Tracks four through seven drag noticeably, and the musical arrangements become repetitive. Keillor himself seems aware of this, because he speeds up the tempo on a couple of those later tracks to try to create momentum. It helps slightly, but not enough to make those songs feel essential. If you are listening through the whole thing, you can probably skip the middle third and lose almost nothing from the overall experience. Another issue is the target audience mismatch. People who discovered Keillor through his later book tours and television appearances may find this record too tied to an older radio sensibility. The humor is gentle to the point of being inoffensive, and the musical choices stay firmly within traditional American folk territory. If your definition of cat songs includes anything experimental or irreverent, this will feel restrictive. There are no rock versions, no jazz interpretations, nothing that pushes against the format he established. The physical CD also has a quirk. Several copies I have seen from the first printing have a gap in the digital read area that causes the player to skip between the third and fourth track. It is a known manufacturing defect from that run. If you buy a used copy and hit a skip loop, try cleaning the disc or checking if it is from the initial pressing. Later pressings fixed the issue.

Who Should Actually Listen to This

This record works best for people who already follow Keillor's work and want something casual to put on while doing chores. It is not structured as a concentrated listening experience. The songs are short, the themes repeat, and the emotional range stays comfortably within a narrow band of warmth and mild amusement. That is fine if that is what you are looking for. It is a problem if you expected a concept album or a serious exploration of the intersection between animals and American folk music. The companion book is worth keeping even if you do not listen to the CD regularly. The lyrics are easy to reference, the layout is clean, and the footnotes provide actual historical context for a few of the traditional songs that you would not otherwise get from just hearing the recordings. I keep it on a shelf next to my other Keillor books and only pull it down when I need something light, which happens to be exactly how most people should approach the whole package.