“Cat” by Relient K, Tuesday, September 13, 2022

 

Starting out as a three-piece band, expanding to four members, and five members, and finally reducing to back to core members Matt Thiessen and Matt Hoopes, Relient K has been through many changes both sonically and thematically in their discography from their All Work & No Play EP in 1998 to their latest record, 2016's Air for Free. The band's maturity on their later releases certainly goes unappreciated by the majority of youth group kids whose parents just wanted their kids to listen to the Christian version of Green Day and Blink-182. Air for Free is mature in that it is nostalgic for childhood and not obsessed with adolescence like the band's earlier catalogue.  

GRAB ANOTHER DIRTY TAMBOURINE AND SHAKE IT . The spiritual sequel to 2009's Forget and Not Slow Down, Relient K's eighth studio record Air for Free has a similar approach to production. After Relient K had released tons of EPs, K ... Is for Karaoke, and a panned attempt at a pop career on the disjointed record Collapsible Lung, Relient K returned to the studio with their longtime producer Mark Lee Townsend, the former dc talk guitarist who had started their career by recommending the barely-graduated boys to Toby Mac and Gotee Records. Townsend has collaborated with Relient K during various stages in the band's history. But rather than making a Tongue in Cheek punk rock record like their early days, Theissen and Hoopes wanted to record something organic, and in order to into the right mindset for the record, they decided to record on a farm about an hour south of their Nashville homes. Hoopes said of the atmosphere of the farm that it had the feel like they were in their Ohio hometown, despite being in the South. Although Relient K had relocated to Nashville years ago, Air for Free continues to have a northern Ohio feel to it, especially as the band recalls childhood in the sometimes childish lyrics. 

HE LOOKS A LOT LIKE ME. "Cat" is the 4th of 16 tracks on the standard edition of Air for Free.  Many of the tracks are whimsical on the record. The new summertime classic and Ohio-pride anthem "Mrs. Hippopotamuses'" and "Elephant Parade" join "Cat" as the trilogy of the most whimsical tracks on the record, but many of the others like "Local Construction" and "Mountaintop" have a whimsical air to them as well. In an interview with WJTL radio, Hoopes said that the farm they recorded on had animals running around, and the record feels like a few strays get loose here and there, such as the effect of the cat walking on the piano at the end of today's song. "Cat" feels like a William Blake observation that speaker witnesses the innocence of a cat hutting a butterfly. The truth is that cats hunt both for food and for sport, so the pretty butterfly, who just woke up from "a new cocoon" might be dead soon. Rather than focusing on the butterfly, though, the speaker is fascinated with the cat. This ragged cat that has wandered into the band's practice space is dirty and has lived outdoors, eating whatever scraps it can find. The cat takes risks "like [it's] got nine more lives" and the speaker draws a comparison between the cat and himself when the speaker declares: "it looks a lot like me." Is it Matt Thiessen's shaggy hair? Or is it the "Bummin'" spirit of the record that draws a connection between the speaker and the cat?

Read “Cat” by Relient K on Genius