Album: Top Priority, 1979, Stage Struck, 1980
Top Priority, which came out on 16 September 1979, features what could be classed as many classics of Rory Gallagher’s oeuvre, including ‘Bad Penny’, ‘Wayward Child’, ‘Follow Me’ and ‘Philby’. Recorded at Dieter Dierks studios just outside Cologne, it was the second and last studio album Ted McKenna worked on with Rory.In the songs, Rory touches upon certain things in his life. In ‘Hell Cat’, a song that doesn’t seem to have been extensive in his live repertoire, though it does appear on the 1980 live album, Stage Struck, we see Rory take an eerier turn. On the notes on the official Rory website for Top Priority, Dónal writes that it’s a spooky song in which, Rory explores his superstitious side and wonders if he might be jinxed. Rory’s superstition is something that has been written about, becoming more pronounced later on in life. Taken along with the themes of other songs in the album, fear of flying, stresses of life on the road, wistfulness for the future, as well as superstition, and the hardboiled detective and cold war spies, Top Priority is certainly an album that can be described as something of an onion with many layers.
‘Hell Cat’ is certainly an interesting song to explore. It’s something of a departure from what Rory usually writes about in his songs. Musically, with its opening riff, sliding into a jaunty blues rock of the sort any fan happily dances about to probably when they think no one is watching. However, the rocking guitar, bass, drums and vocal are a rather clever cover. This isn’t just another clever slice of rock. Listen closely to the lyrics and you seem to be falling closer to the realms of Shirley Jackson.
The lyrics to ‘Hell Cat’ can best be described as a horror story, that describes the increasing intensity and ever pervasiveness of a nasty haunting to a tee. And it’s a very clever turn by Rory as a lyricist, who has essentially written a rather terrifying horror story of being stalked by a demon spewed from the pits of hell. Certainly one for those who enjoy a good scare. Rory Gallagher is the last musician you might think could scare the wiggins out of you as a songwriter, but with ‘Hell Cat’, he proves very effective at it, yet more proof that he is a wildly underrated songwriter:
Well, there's a strange, strange feeling chilling your hands
A shadow in your doorway, freeze you where you stand
You play your dice with the Devil, now it's much too late
Well, don't you know you got a hell cat on your trail
Well, don't you know you got a hell cat on your trail
The themes of nasty, other worldly creatures are not something unfamiliar to the Blues. Robert Johnson was perhaps the most famous proponent of it, helped exceedingly by the legend that he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for becoming an excellent guitarist. Fuel to the fire is added by the fact that no sooner had Johnson started his career, he was dead. The story goes that he was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman he was over friendly with. Or that the devil had come to collect what was owed.
Legend aside, Johnson also featured the supernatural in some of his songs in a similar manner to Rory in ‘Hell Cat’. In ‘Hell Hound On My Trail’, Johnson is also like a man pursued by something from hell, though he gives more prominence in his lyrics to the way in which the everyday mundane, such as his lover, might help him escape. Rory, on the other hand, gives his song over to the full horror of the entity, though both songs indicate that there is no escape. Interestingly, Rory mentioned in one interview that listening to Robert Johnson terrified him.
Blues aside, there is also some hell cats to be found in Irish folklore and ghost stories, which it’s probably a fair bet Rory might have heard of. In County Roscommon, there is The Cave Of Cats, or Oweynagat, reputed to be the Gateway To Hell. As noted in the Ulster Cycle, Queen Medb tests Irish heroes, including the famous Cú Chulainn, by releasing three hell cats from the cave, the end result of which, is that Cú Chulainn is the last one of the heroes left alive.
Then there is the Black Cat of Killakee. This a monstrous ghostly, or possibly demonic, cat, whose large apparition was seen at Killakee House near Rathfarnham in County Dublin. The house also has ties to the infamous Hellfire Club of Dublin. And there is a rather unsettling portrait of the Black Cat painted by an artist who witnessed the apparition. ‘Hell Cat’ certainly does make the appropriate soundtrack!
Ann Massey McElroy goes into detail on both tales on the Spooky Isles website, which are highly recommended reading, while listening to the end of Top Priority. Perhaps while clutching a teddy bear.
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