67. 10 Songs about Dogs

Black Dog -Led Zeppelin
Black Dog on My Shoulder - Manic Street Preachers
Black Eyed Dog - Nick Drake
Hellhound on my Trail - Robert Johnson
Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
Visit from the Dead Dog - Ed Harcourt
I Wanna be your Dog - Iggy and the Stooges
Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
Dog on Wheels - Belle and Sebastian
Maybe Tomorrow (theme from The Littlest Hobo) - Terry Bush

So, Man's Best Friend, eh? Elvis (Leiber/Stoller) and Robert Johnson rather set the template for how dogs might be used in the lexicon of rock'n'roll. Then, the Black Dog of Nick Drake and the Manics is depression (inspired byWinston Churchill). That's one of the prettiest Manics songs, one of their last really good songs.
Sadly, hardly any of these songs are about actual dogs. I ought to have included I Love My Dog by Cat Stevens.
Talking of which (doubly) we had cats and a dog when i was a child. My mother's name is Stevens, and yet, somehow or other, in the 17 years that both or one of them were with us, it never crossed my mind to call either Cat Stevens. How did that happen? I called them everything else under the sun. Life is full of lost opportunities.
And our dog was called Tramp. She was female, a mongrel, a bit mental, could run very fast, a year older than me, managed a good 14 years. One time, she was very ill, and I was home alone one night and i stayed up all night sitting with her under the stairs reading her Oliver Twist. I kept on checking her nose and it was dry, very dry, and she was shivering and whimpering. But in the morning her nose had a bit of dampness to it and she went on to live almost a year more after that. Well done, Charles Dickens.
I guess that was my first Dark Night of the Soul, albeit a 12 year old's version.

Here's a man about a dog ....

The muzzled dog went running
through the conquered streets of Ealing

she growled and showed her anger
to all who'd dare to listen

She cursed and struck her life blows
and she never would be beaten -

I know what you are thinking
but you can't know how i'm feeling.

The muzzled dog is pawing
at the unforgiving pavement

and all she's got's this nothing
this ever-raging nothing,

there's no rock for her to cling to
no truth she has recourse to

and she keeps on running madly
chasing crazier slights and triumphs.

Only comfort's been this nothing
and that's no refuge at all.

The old black cat's still sleeping
but she can't hear him purring,

there's no rhythm to her footsteps,
no target to her anger.

she's so far from where she started
no sense to all this knowledge,

no tenets to the trivia,
and the jealousy's unceasing

and the present is a nothing
but the muzzled dog keeps running.