Dead Cat on the Line

 While we are regularly reminded that they nailed Socrates for corrupting the youth, we do sometimes feel obliged to enlighten the younger members of our audience as to the origins of some of the bluer material in our repertoire. This song, for example — which we got from a 1934 recording by a couple of our heroes, Tampa Red and Georgia Tom — isn’t about what you might think it’s about. Don’t worry! The “dead cat” in the title isn’t Mittens or Fluffy. It’s about fishing. No, really. The Flood’s crack research department looked into this, oh, 10 or 12 years ago and learned — from no less an authority than the late, great word guru William Safire, writing in The New York Times — that the phase "dead cat on the line" appears to refer to a dead catfish on a trotline, evidence that a lazy fisherman hasn’t been checking his poles. In other words, the song’s just saying, look out, now — something's fishy...