Alley Cat

Album: Very Best of Bent Fabric and His Piano (1962)
Charted: 7
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Songfacts®:

  • This won the Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Recording, 1962.
  • Bent Fabric is a man, not a group. His real name is Bent Fabricus-Bjerre, and he wrote this under the pseudonym "Frank Bjorn."
  • Fabric is a piano player from Denmark. The Danish title of this is "Omkring et Flygel," which means "Around the Piano."
  • This was the theme song of popular Danish TV show of same name, hosted by Fabric.
  • Farbic led a jazz band in the 1940s. He became head of Denmark's Metronome Records in 1950, making the transition to pop music about the same time. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for all above
  • An instrumental, this used to be very popular at weddings. It has a goofy dance that speeds up with the music.
  • A later vocal version features lyrics by Jack Harlen.

Comments: 13

  • Pat from South CarolinaAlly Cat is my all time favorite music!
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyPer: www.legacy.com
    Danish pianist Bent Fabric passed away on July 28th, 2020 after a short illness. He was 95 years old...
    Born Bent Fabricius-Bjerre in Frederiksberg, Denmark, he won a Grammy Award for 'Best Rock ‘N’ Roll' recording for his 1962 Top 10 hit, “Alley Cat"...
    "Alley Cat" peaked at #7 {for 1 week} on Billboard's Top 100 chart in September of 1962 and it spent eighteen weeks on the Top 100...
    He had one other Top 100 record, "Chicken Feed", it reached #63 in 1963 and stay on the chart for eight weeks...
    May he R.I.P.

  • Greg Y. from Monterey, CaLove the music, my senior line-dance group dances to it. Isn't there a version that gets faster and faster towards the end?
  • Frank from Granchester Meadows, GreenlandThanks Mike from PA--------never knew the lyrics before...those are cool.
  • Mike from Franklin County, Pa(P.S.) This is one of the first songs I've learned to play on the keyboard of an electric organ my dad uaed to owned when I was younger . I still play it every now and then on my small Casio keyboard organ ( this organ which is a musical keyboard toy , has 100 different tunes ; so you can press any two buttons on the instrument to change the sound from a organ to a glass harmonica , a pipe organ , bagpipe , harpsichord , etc. )
  • Mike from Franklin County, Pa(Lyrics to song )1. He goes on the prowl each night , Like an alley cat. Looking for some new delight , Like an alley cat . ..2. She can't trust him out of sight , There's no doubt of that . He just don't know wrong from right , Like an alley cat. ..He meets them (meow) , And loves them (meow) ,And leaves them (meow) , Like that "Casanova" does. ..3. That's no way to treat a pal , She should tell him "Scat !" . Aren't you sorry for that gal , And her alley cat . ( instrumental interlude ).. He meets them (meow), And loves them (meow) , And leaves them (meow), Like that "Casanova" does . .. 4. He don't know that faithful means , There's no doubt of that. He's too busy makin' scenes , Like am alley cat . ... And that's the sad , sad tale of a lonesome quail , And her alley cat . (ends)
  • Reed from New Ulm, MnCan someone [probably age 50 or over]tell me if this particular song was played on the Jackie Gleason show everytime he introduced Frank Fontane as "Crazy Googenhime"?...or is it just my imagination. i seem to remember that for some reason.
  • Lars from Copenhagen, DenmarkPerhaps wishful thinking, but Bent Fabric claims
    in his latest autobiography (of a kind) "Tanker ved tangenterne" that "Alley Cat" was a #1 hit for several weeks on the Billboard Charts. This isn´t true, it peaked at #7, but still a great tune which he can be proud of!
  • Louis Rodriguez from Lancaster, CaI've been a rock and roll fan for most of my life,but i just can't understand how "alley cat"
    got selected as a grammy for best rock and roll
    recording. What about hey baby or do you love me
    or maybe green onions. don't get me wrong i like
    this song it just doesn't belong in that catagory
  • Peter from Sandager, DenmarkThis year (2004) Bent Fabricus-Bjerre's hit song Jukebox was used in a european Coca Cola comercial.
  • Soren from Copenhagen, DenmarkThe US record company introduced a story that Bent Fabric was inspired by his two cats "Tim" and "Tom" to write the song. But in fact Bent had no cats - he'd written it as a theme-song for a TV-series. But the cat story went with him on his promo-tour in the US - culminating with the opening of a cat exebishion in the top of Empire State Building...
  • Soren from Copenhagen, DenmarkThe US record company disliked the orignal title "Around The Piano" and wanted to come up with a title involving an animal. The first idea was "Drunken Penguin" - but the name was already taken... so was "Pink Elephant" and several other ideas. Bent Fabric came up with "Alley Cat" after reading a column in a magazine written by a guy, who called himself "Alley Cat"...
  • Soren from Copenhagen, DenmarkAt the age of more than 80 Bent Fabric hit the dance charts in Denmark with "shake" and "Jukebox".
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