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The Cat Album

by Tyler Shipley

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1.
its snowing this afternoon, the start of winter we're going to your brother's tonight he's making dinner I wore a black sweater cos you guys all wear black and I wanna fit in and be cool and not attract undue attention to the way that I dress which is sometimes pretty cool and sometimes a mess and this black sweater is covered in the fur of my cats yeah I bring em with everywhere that I go, they're following me their fur gets entangled in everything and I'm so fucking grateful cos it helps me remembers the love that I hold for those furry creatures they don't do it intentionally can't control if their fur gets on me but I like to believe they want me to know that they're thinking about me wherever I go wondering if I'm bringing treats home or if I'm staying out the night and leaving them alone sometimes I carry a lot of guilt when they're alone in the home we built cos I don't know where I would be without them they don't ask for much and they always forgive if I leave it too long before their claws get a snip if sometimes in my care for them I let a bit slip I'm really nervous to write the next part I know what I wanna say but I'm not sure how to start cos my songs sometimes have a terrible predictive quality I worry in a song and the worry becomes reality and these cats are getting older so I don't need to say what it is I don't wanna write I'm so afraid I don't think I can do it can we talk about something else cos even starting to consider life after these cats a lump is in my throat and I'm overwhelmed by the facts that I'm not ready to accept so can we please change the subject these cats are so sleepy I filled the dish but they haven't got up yet and when I come home after a night out to the front door they buzz around and meow and I say 'hey little cazzos I missed you so much tell me about your night while I fix you some lunch' and they dramatically meow like they hadn't eaten in days and I laugh and pet their heads and everybody's ok and they listen when I play they listen and they listen and they listen all day especially the one whose fur is mostly grey he just sits beside me and watches while I play and he'll stare off into space I think there's something comforting in the vibrations and it makes him calm cos he knows I'm calm and we feed off each other like a father and a son and sometimes he gets up and walks away which I take as a sign that the song has lost its way and I'll stop writing until he comes back or I'll put down the guitar and fill the dish up with snacks cos it's not fucking important whatever I'm writing will still be there in the morning but every second with these cats is precious from when they're curled in a ball to doing full body stretches from their complete and utter indifference to their anxiety and panic and persistence from how hard they work to find the perfect position to the look they give you when you interrupt a nap like 'how dare you what is this imposition' and when they play with their octopus toy it's been their favourite for years the little legs they enjoy and then suddenly they're done with it and they just walk away slowly and find a comfortable place to sit I love their self-possession they do things when they want masters of their own destiny and yet, they still rely on me for love and taking care of them may be the most important thing I've ever done so I'm finishing this song on a plane I'm flying from toronto to winnipeg and there's a cat on board crying out in fear I wish I could hold it and reassure it that everyone is here but I won't see my own cats for four days and it's so hard for them when I go away wish I could text them 'hey guys what's up don't climb on the table I love you and I miss you and I'll call you when I'm able' but that's the tragedy of being a cat you don't know when someone leaves if they're gonna come back and I relate so hard to that feeling
2.
Diabetes 07:21
if you know my songs you know my cats and the quirks and conditions that they have one is diabetic and the other is a clown we do insulin in the morning, and when I go out of town my upstairs neighbour takes good care of them he's such a solid guy and I'm so grateful to him because these two cats mean the world to me and if anything happened to them I don't know where I would be which brings me to January 16, 2020 I knew something was up with the healthy cat, something was funny he's got a big personality, usually purring in my face but he'd been quiet, subdued and restrained and when I picked him up he was so light in my arms and when I put him next to the food dish he just looked at me so distant and forlorn this is really not how he is he's a happy guy, it's his brother who's an emo goth kid and then I noticed that he couldn't quite jump from the floor to the bed in my room, it was just a little too much he could do it last week losing strength in the legs is a sign of advancing diabetes and this is just what happened when his brother got sick so we're going to the doc on saturday to get it all checked I'm likely gonna have two diabetic cats and it could be a lot worse but tonight I still feel really really sad he's sitting here beside me looking so depressed he doesn't know what's going on in his body and why he feels upset and he doesn't know how all this is gonna end I wanna say 'hey little buddy listen up, you're not dying, you just need some meds' but the truth is we've got a road ahead there is nothing remotely easy about the trip to the vet and even worse is the time after he comes home and I have to keep the cats separated from each other so they don't fight because they're so freaked out they forget themselves and each other and it's a mess of angry claws and snouts these are delicate fucking creatures and they can quickly go from everything is fine to full fucking panic mode so my furry little friends we've got a week ahead of us we're gonna get through it, but in the meantime buckle up and there may be moments when I lose my cool but remember I have endless love for both of you remember I have endless love for both of you remember I have endless love for both of you I know that would have been the place to end the song but it's bugging me bad that some of what I said turned out to be wrong today I'm gonna sing these words and it's one week later but the cat's not diabetic, he's got stage four kidney failure and this week has been hell, I've barely slept and I'm a mess but the cat's back home and he's doing ok under the circumstances I don't know how long we have left together and I've been fearing this day for a very long time but maybe it's better to know it's coming, to have time to prepare and to give this cat the very best possible palliative care so this song has a coda just like my sweet little friend and I'm making it soft and calm as we move closer to the end
3.
there are times when I get so caught up I get extremely negative and I don't give a fuck about anything and I find every person around me a problem doing something that I take as a slight or as negligent or unbothered by the needs of everyone else around them but mostly mine, if I'm honest, in these moments it can make me a really miserable person to be around so I try to hide that side when I go out with other people so it comes out when I'm alone driving in the car trying to find syringes that'll hold a large enough amount of IV fluid that my cat can process food and get rid of all the toxins that are poisoning his sweet little body because his kidney is failing and it's my responsibility to give him the best possible chance of staying alive so you can imagine how frustrated I was when I arrived at shopper's drug mart to find out they didn't have the right syringe after I called and asked specifically about this and they'd already shuffled me through three different lines which turned out to be a waste of twenty minutes of my time and I know you're thinking 'come on man it's twenty minutes' and you're right but that's just not the point now, is it the point is I get to a place where I'm wearing very tinted glasses and to every person who can't solve my problem I'd like to kick their fucking asses like the man who nearly ran me over in the shopper's parking lot then had the nerve to yell at me that I should better watch I yelled back 'I was watching maybe you should take your own advice' but the interaction only made me feel worse inside does this happen to other people or is it just me I think I remember this being a way my dad could be so maybe it's linked to depression which I believe is connected to a kind of hopelessness about the prospect of things ever getting better I usually regret when I get into this place the deeper I go the more I become a disgrace childish and surly and miserable and short-tempered and selfish and uncultured I become exactly what is bothering me in other people deeply and profoundly and effectively anti-social embittered by other peoples' joy, energized by other peoples' hate relishing the conflict because it justifies my own state but again, none of it ever feels good I'd push a button and be out of this feeling if I could there's no button, but there's a flowing river so I'm standing beside it, breathing in its air trying to be reasonable to people, trying not to be a dick I just got out of the way of a mom and two kids and a dog carrying a stick and she thanked me and I thought it was nice because it wasn't a big deal and so I tried to take that in and remember that not everyone is irredeemable and I'll figure this thing out with the syringes right I can try using smaller ones and filling them up and doing it twice and I've got friends coming by tonight I'm making chicken pot pie not from scratch, but it will still be good, I'm gonna really try and we're gonna try to get some pills into this cat cos in addition to the fluids he needs probiotics and we've had no success at getting those pills down his throat he just clamps up his jaw and wriggles and hollers and moans but I'm lucky I have so much help in this aliya stayed at my house for more than a week to help manage the crisis and she looks things up for me and keeps me from getting too low without her would we have gotten through this, I don't know so instead of focusing on frustrating strangers who probably have a long list of their own shit causing em anguish I'm gonna thank this river and these trees and all my people for helping me help this cat as we go through this upheaval and I'll get back in the car and go down to bloor fruit and variety and pick up some sage to help season the butternut squash gnocchi that I'm making as a side because my friends are coming from the other side of the city so I wanna make them a nice dinner and I wanna present it real pretty my dad said something once about writing that with me seemed to stick he said he didn't like ordinary descriptions of extraordinary situations but extraordinary descriptions of ordinary situations and so I don't know if that's what I'm doing but it's the road I'm trying to go speaking of roads I'm driving up high park blvd right now and it reminds me of a time years ago when my dad was in town I had boxes and boxes of consumer goods cds in my house so we took em to a high park apartment block dumpster and threw em out i took a picture and my dad laughed and that's all I remember and we went back to my place and probably had a beer and some dinner it was a really dark night and back then I didn't have a vehicle so the help was sweet but also very instrumental and there's something of meaning in that memory I don't know what it is but it's really stuck with me something about clearing out old creations and making space for new ones and a dad who just hops in the car to help you make it happen speaking of things that happened I got through the bad mood my friends came over and we played gloomhaven and we ate some food and it's 2 am now and I'm propped up in bed with the cat on my lap it's a good place to be considering the night he's had see my friends were coming by in part to help give the cat an appetite stimulent have you ever stuck a pill in a cat's mouth, it's no picnic I couldn't do it alone but the three of us together got it in and it was pretty upsetting for the cat and for awhile he looked totally broken he just laid on the floor flatter than I've ever seen a living thing he was traumatized, he had given up, it was heartbreaking and the next that happened was gross you might not want to listen anymore in his despair he took a shit right there on my beautiful old hardwood floor it was probably one of the lowest moments of his life so I held him close while anne, bless her heart, gave his furry little ass a wipe and we brought him back around but man that was a terrible episode I guess this is what it's like when you're a cat and you're getting old I've written this song across a 48 hour span of time during which my emotions have sunk to great depths and risen to such heights that it's hard to know what kind of music I should attach it to or whether I should cap it here or write another verse or two inspiration is strange and unpredictable I've been writing so much lately but I spent nearly two years in a silence so monastical so now whenever something hits me I try to capture it and later on I can sort it out and separate the good from the shit a range that reflects these last 48 hours the ups and downs like april's rains and may's flowers the times when I feel hopeless, alone and like my cat is imminently dying and those when I feel grateful for what I've had and what I have and what's left of our time so no neatly tied up end to this one no circles coming full or backs being called, no need to learn a lesson just time to turn the light off and hold close whatever cat settles in text aliya goodnight hope for good dreams and then do it all again
4.
ok let me set the scene it's an early january monday I'm in sunnybrook park waiting for a guy named landon to call me to tell me that the servicing is finished and my toyota corolla is ready so I can drive it home to my cats and a great big pile of grading wow as I wrote that, landon called I guess I still have the power of prediction in my songs it's trivial maybe but it really trips me out I've become conscious of it every time I write now I'm gonna try to break the spell today by noting that in writing down these words it's possible that I'm not paying enough attention to the path I'm walking through the snow along the side of a cliff with a steep dropping it's beautiful and I can hear the creek down below but it's a fifty foot drop and it's slippery along the edge from the snow which is a bit wet because it's a melty day, two degrees and sunny I think this song was gonna be about walking near the edge of a cliff I was going to prove to myself that my songs aren't psychic but I got another call and now the song's been derailed but I also didn't fall down the side of a mountain, so, yay really though I've been trippin out about the power of my worry and this is bad because I struggle with this sort of thing already and the fear that if I get too high and walk too close to the edge I am destined to slide and fall and plummet to my death see this is a thing with me not fear of literal heights but of the idea of letting myself genuinely believe that things are good, that I'm ok, everything is alright which I associate with the feeling right before my life is blown up by dynamite and now it's a week later but it's a similar kind of day it's sunny and mild and thank god because I needed a break from the cold of last week, I became so shut in spending all my time in the house trying to get the cat to tuck in to any one of the more than twenty different foods I'm trying to offer to entice him into eating because he's not and it's making him suffer and I know this means we're getting closer and closer to the end but I can't accept it, I'm in denial I'm just trying to find the right blend of smell, and taste, and position, and placement that will unlock his instinct to dig into his bowl of chicken with the proteins and the nutrients that his body needs to survive come on cat, do this for me, you need to fucking stay alive but yesterday something unlocked for me inside aliya said no matter what you do he's in the cycle of his own life and it's gonna end and it's gonna be shattering and the rest of us will still be here and I'm crying trying to write this but it's what I needed to hear so today I got outside and breathed the air and I let something go the idea that I can save his life if I just do the right thing, but no there's nothing much I can do that will change this cat's path all I can do is love him and his brother and do my best to give him snacks until the moment comes and my uncle ross says I'll know when it does he and darlene have loved a lot of cats and I asked them if they could share any thoughts and he said: it's hard man because we love them so much. dar reminds me of a special vet we had, a kitty generation ago, whose advice was, when it gets to that stage, don't hang on for your sake, do what is best for your friend who seems no longer to have quality of life. it's very hard to make that decision but it is truly best. when you make the decision please be with him / hold him and comfort him with love. we love you pal. and fuck, these are moments that just punch you in the gut there's just so much fucking sadness cos there's so much fucking love and as I've been going through this thing there are people who've reached out to offer love and support and kindness and to help me stay grounded my brother had two cats and he knows what's going on so he's been texting me about starting a tashcan sinatras cover band and playing songs that we both love and it's been fun to think about which songs we would play and what the band would be called, I said garbage pail shipleys but I don't think it's gonna take and my other brother's wife has been looking up our family tree online she found a picture of a great great grandfather who looked exactly like my dad, it was frightening and she shared this with me and we talked a bit back and forth about family histories and I know they just wanted to check in and keep me on board these are little things but the difference they make is enormous like I'm still laughing at my brother's text about the band which stipulated 'no tricky chords' so I'm gonna throw a few real doozies into this next section to get em out of my system, ok here goes, cover your ears gavin I wish all these people lived closer one of my biggest regrets as I get older is being so far from my sister and brothers cos I'd really like to have a beer and play some covers and play in the annual road hockey game and spend saturdays roasting the carolina hurricanes and read books with brynne before bed and play catch with kiwi and try not to get hit in the head and help fix each other's houses and garages and complain about the potholes and the local tv ads and just be a ten minute drive away so that our lives are connected everyday ok I'll bring it back to sunybrook park these songs always make sense to me but I know for some of you it's hard to follow the thread, to see the point, to understand where I'm going it's like I'm making footprints in the snow but I forgot it's still snowing and the sound of the snow crunching underneath my boots in this park in 2020 takes me back to 1992 every day twice a day walking between my home and lincoln school a lot of who I was back then, it still rings true but knowing who I am and where I come from is so important without that I could easily drift further and faster toward the edge of that cliff all covered in ice so thank you to the crunching snow and to all the people who keep me alive
5.
I've never witnessed any living creature die and despite seeing it in the movies I've no idea what it's like in real life but pretty soon I'm gonna know because my little red cat is at the end and there's only one way this can go last night I held him in my arms and I cried and today he sat at my feet all day while I tried to write but he can barely walk without falling over because he's refusing to eat and there's really nothing I can do to force him we've had nearly thirteen beautiful years together he's seen me at my worst and he's seen me at my better and I understand him intuitively and without language I know from the look on his face if he's happy or sad or angry or scared, I've seen that one a lot this last month he's scared of what's happening in his body and of all the discomfort and I'm sure he's scared of dying, because who the hell isn't and I don't know what to tell him except that I'll be with him to the end I go a little bit numb when I try to picture that moment even though I should probably prepare because any day now I'm gonna live it I don't know what it means to keep it together for a cat he can read my emotions and to them he often reacts does he need me to be strong and steady and reassuring does he need to know that I will miss him and that his memory I will carry does he need to be distracted so the last thing he feels isn't fear god I would do any fucking thing to keep him here part of me can't even believe that this is real every day for the last thirteen years he's meowed while I fixed up his meals and every day when I came home he ran up to the door with a little trill like 'hey dad where the hell have you been my stomach is literally eating itself' I don't mean to suggest that all he cared about was snacks he was also very serious about rubbing his face against my hand while I tried to grade papers and sometimes he'd flip right down on the stack and I'd have to apologize to my students because there'd be fur on their exams I have an endless list of things to say about this little guy but all I think about is that very soon I will holding him while he dies a lot of sad and hard things have happened in my life but right now this one feels really dramatic and insane and horrifying soon I'll be watching the life drain out of my beloved companion and watching his brother trying to make sense of what is happening I don't know what it's like to mourn one cat alongside another or how to explain to him that he'll never again get to chase his brother across the living room floor like a couple of maniacs and onto the bed where their claws would jab my leg and give me heart attacks and into the kitchen where they'd slide across the tiles over the years they've probably chased each for hundreds of miles and now one has reached the end of the road and we have no idea what comes after, when the road ends where do you go do you float into a place where there's an endless bowl of delicious snacks or does everything fall silent, it just ends and that's that I would do anything for these cats including ending their pain but it's a lot harder in reality then when it's just an abstract thing you say so I just listened to the trashcan sinatras song 'should I pray' and when I got to the end of the song I asked myself the same 'am I talking to myself in these prayers or will they lead me somewhere in death' I don't know frank, but maybe I will pray for my little friend as he crosses over into the unknown that is the end and I will hold his paw from the start until the finish and wherever in this world that he goes I will be with him I've got just over twenty four hours left to spend with him but I stepped out to get a coffee and it's just started snowing and before I go home I'm gonna pop over to the pond in high park to say hi to the ducks because right now I really need their support animals understand life and death better than we do some of my friends have come to say goodbye and cry and that's beautiful too but we have this inherent sense of it not being fair like we've been cheated or wronged animals understand that this is just the world carrying on so I'm gonna spend ten minutes visiting with the ducks to try to find some comfort in the midst of something that utterly fucking sucks because like the ducks and my friends and the other cat, my life will continue my time here isn't over and I have to be able to contribute so a bit later that afternoon I walked down the street to get another coffee and sat in front of the shop for a minute, it was still snowing and i took a picture of the lithuanian banquet hall across the street and couple came by and tied their dog up next to me I don't always like dogs but this one I understood she was an old black lab and she was tired and I recognized the look in her eyes, she knew pain just like I did so I sat with her and stroked her head and we were truly together for a minute eventually I knew I had to go home and spend my last night with the cat but nothing felt right, everything derailed and I went into a kind of panic I guess it's hard to plan something like this, sometimes it just doesn't go the way you wanted it to so you go to sleep and you wake up and it's a new day and now it's that day and I'm crying in my bed cos it's about nine hours this cat has left and my body feels empty and sick and shaky and broken and unreal but I'm trying to remember that this is a terrible terrible wound but over time it will heal and I'm thankful because so many kind people have sent their love my mother and my sister and my brother and greg and riaz and hulya and the neighbour who lives above and we're only a few hours away and that song is still in my head 'lose a life, lose a love, losing all my friends' this cat was all those things to me I know he was a foundational piece of my life, I held him this morning and said 'you are my home' he was love, he was the meaning of it, no creature ever loved so and in the end he was my friend, he made the world warmer and made me less alone yesterday the universe gave us a comforting blanket of snow and today the sun came out to remind us that onward we must go and I thanked him for the endless gifts he gave to me the laughter, the love, the support and on my hardest days a reason to be and now it's a few hours away from his last breath and we're sitting together on my old chair and I'm rubbing his head and we're watching the trains roll by and the wind blowing the snow if there has to be a last afternoon this one is beautiful and now he's sitting on the floor and I'm playing this song for him goodbye my sweet friend, goodbye I love you and I forever will until it's me sitting there getting ready to face the end of my life you will be in my heart, I love you so much, goodbye
6.
Ashes 06:23
I’m walking the boardwalk down in the beaches a quick stop on the way to pick up the cat’s ashes it’s early march but it’s 18 degrees and sunny and I’m taking it as an expression of the cat’s generosity cos this is obviously a pretty fucked up errand but the sun is helping me make this day repairing when I was little my parents read me a story and the end was my favourite part when mr bell’s fix-it shop learned to fix broken hearts my heart’s been broken so many times I can’t remember a lot of times I needed a mr bell but there just wasn’t one there as I get older I try harder and harder to find mr bell’s in the sun and the wind and the rain and the birds and the sky so I’m grateful to be able to walk outside today I parked the car and walking further and further away I should probably head back but it’s just so nice to see all these people and their dogs and the seagulls feeling good beside the sea but I passed a man a few minutes ago who looked like he was crying he was walking with a border collie and wiping his eyes and I think he was trying to manage the pain of whatever was going on maybe that dog was sick or his wife was leaving or he lost his son but that’s life, it’s pain and beauty all wrapped up together nothing really getting worse nothing really getting better just cycles and circles and dialectics repeating yeah I just used the word dialectics and mischaracterized it’s meaning so onward I went to collect the last of my cat when for a moment I pulled over to check my position on the map when a lady in her late sixties in a pink jacket walked past the car and then she looked back and with her cane she sorta waved me over she asked me if I could drive her to the td bank up the road it was a nice day but it was still march and to her it was still cold and it was a busy street for an old woman to walk apparently she’d done this route recently and had a fall so of course I drove her to the bank and offered to wait and drive her back she was thankful and kind and told me about her son who was at home taking a nap cos he worked the overnight shift stocking shelves at costco so I helped her into the car and she talked to me while I drove and later that afternoon I realized that that lady was the cat she was sweet and funny and kind and she let me take care of her in the way that I could just like that little waze did and I was so grateful that through this strange encounter I was able to be with him and across that day the sun gave way to light rain the kind that smells warm like new life in the spring and I lit a candle and I sat on my front step and I smoked a cigar and said thank you to my sweet friend and I’ve been staying close with the other cat we’re watching curb your enthusiasm and he’s resting on my lap it’s just the two of us now but we’re doing okay spending a lot of time and taking it day to day to day and we’ll watch over the ashes of our beloved friend and like mr bell each other’s hearts we will learn to mend

about

An album about losing a beloved friend

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released November 5, 2020

Songs and music by Tyler Shipley
Steel guitar on "Diabetes" by Jesse Carlson
Violin on "Ashes" by Graham McLaughlin
Vocals on "Ashes" by Robin Linton and Graham McLaughlin
Mastering by Jamie Sitar
Artwork by Nathan Nun

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Tyler Shipley Toronto, Ontario

Tyler Shipley was the founding member of the Consumer Goods (theconsumergoods.bandcamp.com) and now performs as a solo artist.

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