Vida d'un gat [English translation]

His1 father was an old cat, fat and lame,

His mother was a street she-cat,

And he was born on a rainy night.

But his mother died in childbirth,

And his father – of a heart attack,

And he was left, abandoned, amidst the meadows.

He would have died of hunger, he would have died of cold,

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

He had neither parents, nor a single friend,

Nor a godparent who’d take care of him.

And so, all alone, having lived just a few days,

He dragged his body on the way towards the city.

However, while he was crossing the road,

A passing truck run him over at a zebra crossing.

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

And he felt so unhappy, weak, overwhelmed,

Lying there flat under the truck.

He saw that he couldn’t, he couldn’t breath,

But no way that life would leave the cat.

Wounded and scared to death,

He followed a girl, and the girl caught him,

Took him in her arms and gave him some ridiculous name,

She took him home and showed him to her family.

But her father with no scruples grabbed him by the neck

and, while telling the girl off, threw him out of the window.

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

He fell seven storeys down, but remained alive on the pavement,

all bruised and battered, but there are more lives awaiting him.

Life! There’s life!

But he managed to get up, managed to walk,

Managed to cross the street down to the port,

And he saw the sea, and he saw a fish.

He approached the quay but he slipped

And fell into the water; he felt he was lost,

He was sure he’d die drowned,

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

It was a pitiful sight to see him holding on to life,

Paddling towards a boat that was going out to the sea.

And he managed to climb it, half-drowned, scared to death.

He spent all his childhood inside a fishing vessel.

He disembarked seven months later

In a strange, apocalyptic, inhospitable land

Of half torn down houses, people dead or killing one another,

Of a mess of hysterical cries of terror, of fires and nerves.

And suddenly a bomb exploded under his paws

And threw him into the air, saying goodbye to his life.

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

And in that fucking country there was war, there was war,

And where violence rules, they’d turn your head into a sieve.

The body full of shrapnels was dying, was dying,

When suddenly a miracle occured that he’d never have expected.

A beautiful, merciful she-cat took him in

And, with time and with caresses she healed his wounds.

And he spent his recovery time in fucking,

But the she-cat was hiding from him that she loved another cat…

What am I saying? What cat? That was a tiger!

When one bad day he caught them, he swore he’d kill them.

That’s the kind of trouble that skirts bring…

But luckily he2 was a cat and he had seven lives.

Imagine that beast3, a kind of a legionary,

Wanting, as a revenge, a slow death of the two lovers.

The she-cat died, shredded by claws,

And he2, well… He escaped, chased like a rat.

The firing stopped and there came the times of peace.

Of peace but also of misery, suffering and hunger.

And one day the cat felt once again his body levitating,

His body challenging all laws of gravity.

He was grabbed by the paws and lifted from the ground,

And an thrilled voice of someone looking at him, shouted:

"Yupee! Family, today we’ll have a grilled cat for dinner!".

But luckily he was a cat and he had seven lives.

By a miracle he managed to get out, so they would not trap him,

He wouldn’t end up as a substitute dish.

In the postwar times there’s hunger, there’s hunger.

Seven lives had elapsed but the cat never died.

In fact, he didn’t understand the grace of this life

And now he only dragged on, he only swagged, he only strayed.

Now he was a miserable old cat, despised by everyone,

He was a scapegoat and that was killing him.

Holy shit, what a dog’s life he had!

And, unluckily, he was a cat and he had seven lives.

1. I know that to animals we usually apply the pronoun "it" (and, consequently, "its" in the genitive form). I've decided to "personify" this cat, though. It seems to be more suited for the dynamics of the tale of his life.2. a. b. the protagonist cat3. the tiger

• Artist:Albert Pla
• Album:Ho sento molt (2007)