Song · Primus
“Tommy The Cat” by Primus
From the album Sailing the Seas of Cheese (1991)
“Tommy The Cat” by Primus appears on 12 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 1999 and 2022. It was first released in 1991 on the album Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Its best result is #95 on the X96's Top 100 Songs of the 90's. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #1,679 alternative song of all time.
Watch
Video from YouTube (PrimusVEVO). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"Tommy the Cat" followed "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" as the second promotional single from Sailing the Seas of Cheese, the 1991 second album by Primus, and it's as twitchy and deranged as anything on that record. Les Claypool wrote the words and sings, and the spoken-word bits, delivered as the voice of Tommy the Cat himself, belong on the studio version to none other than Tom Waits, growling like a back-alley barker. The music is credited to Claypool, Larry LaLonde, Tim Alexander and Todd Huth, and the band produced it themselves.
Live, Claypool handles both voices on his own. After the video got its run on MTV the song caught on so well that he took to introducing the band's other songs in concert as, pointedly, not "Tommy the Cat".
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 573 | 107.7 The End | The End Top 1077 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 1077 |
| 1999 | 378 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1999) | 500 |
| 2000 | 284 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2000) | 500 |
| 2001 | 285 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2001) | 498 |
| 2002 | 155 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2002) | 500 |
| 2003 | 101 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2003) | 500 |
| 2003 | 1002 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
| 2005 | 98 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2005) | 500 |
| 2006 | 277 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (2006) | 499 |
| 2019 | 95 | X96 | X96's Top 100 Songs of the 90's | 100 |
| 2022 | 644 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 900 Songs of the '90s | 900 |
| 2022 | 116 | X96 | X96 Top 500 Alternative Songs of All Time | 500 |
Also listed as: Tommy the Cat.
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