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  Audience: Adults. Or kids. Or both.  
 

 

Back Fence Choir was written for adults, but can be shaped for an audience of kids, or kids and adults--since, like many recent entertainments (the Shrek movies, for example), much of it works on several levels.

 

The literal meanings are accurate about cats, and those are available for kids. But other interpretations are built in for adults, which can be implied (or even emphasized) in presentations for adults. Several parodies touch--although lightly—on sex (see the first two below), and even violence and drugs.

 

Also, with 40 songs to draw on, some can be included or omitted for specific audiences.

Some examples can clarify this (only the underscored examples are online):

Tree Trunk Traction (Satisfaction) (kids or adults):

For kids: Cats chase birds, of course, and get frustrated...

For adults: Mick Jagger was chasing birds, too, and wrote Satisfaction about that hunt, and its frustration. This song can be presented to emphasize that tomcatting, also.

 

The Lady Is A Cat (The Lady Is A Tramp)(kids or adults)

            For kids: This typical cat rules, with her insatiable yet changeable appetite, self-absorption, capricious comings and goings, and nerve-wracking overnight disappearances.

          For adults: Every image is (or implies) a double-entendre ("she sleeps where she wants"), so this song can present a female sexual prowler—in some ways the counterpart of  the tom in Tree Trunk Traction.

 

Oh, What A Wonderful Closet (. . . Wonderful Day)(kids or adults).
            
For kids:  Of course, cats love closets! In those small domains, they’re unobserved, and so have a free paw to get into all sorts of unexpected trouble. And those racks of shoes, belts, and ties offer so many interesting ways to climb various walls.

For adults: The subtext, of course, can be pretty clear.  

 

Jack The Cat (Mack The Knife)(good for adults):

           Jack The Cat satirizes the way we often ignore the fact that our graceful, powerful pets are very well-designed predators. A related denial is involved in the glamorizing of violence (gangsters, cowboys). The song parodied here, Mack The Knife, was theoretically an attack on that glamorization—but, irresistible itself, has in effect become part of the problem. And this parody has all the above in mind. Seems too harsh for kids. 

O Restless Cat (O Danny Boy) (good for kids)

          
O Restless Cat (O Danny Boy) is a song about the cabin fever of winter—which relates well to kids in particular. And it's even in a parental voice, gently advising patience, because spring will return.


Mr Can-Man (Mr. Sandman) (good for kids) 
           Mr. Can-Man has a theme that's especially good for kids: It's about the frustrations of being dependent--like requiring someone else to open that lunch for you.

 

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