Mitski learned the hard way not to cross a cat. After adopting two during the pandemic, she came home from her first time touring again to a rude surprise. “One of them, while making direct eye contact with me, walked over to one of my potted plants, and peed into it,” she says, laughing. “And I was like, ‘I hear you! I’m gonna keep doing this, but I’m sorry. I deserve that.’ ”
The road is now imminent once again — sorry to say, kitties — as Mitski gears up for more new music. The musician won’t say much about her eighth studio album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me (out Feb. 27), but it’s about an eccentric, reclusive woman who finds freedom in a home of her own creation. The world she weaves in its songs is replete with cats, from the felines of Grey Gardens to the white cats that the protagonist of The Haunting of Hill House dreams of owning before being consumed by ghosts.
In honor of those furry friends, Mitski spoke with Rolling Stone about her choices for the top-five most culturally important cats of all time.
Jiji (Kiki’s Delivery Service)
Kiki and her cat Jiji in Hayao Miyazaki’s 1989 film
This is why we as adult women should watch Kiki’s Delivery Service. [Kiki gets] burnt out and loses her magic. She can no longer speak to her familiar cat, Jiji, and this is devastating. I feel like this is exactly why Miyazaki stories are so good, because it’s so real. You can’t get your old childhood magic back. The only thing you can do is move forward and find new magic.
The Cats That Pull Norse Deity Freya’s Chariot
Freya, goddess of love in Scandinavian mythology, driving her chariot pulled by cats.
Universal History Archive/Getty Images
I feel like this shows her power, because to be able to get two separate individual cats to listen to you enough to drive your chariot is like, “OK, that’s a goddess.”
The Prophet Muhammad’s Cat
I’m not Muslim, but [according to some traditions] the Prophet Muhammad’s cat inspired the prophet to tell his followers “Be kind to cats. Don’t harm cats.” And that’s huge; millions of people were then inspired to be kind to cats. Our world today would be completely different if that one cat wasn’t there at the right place at the right time.
The Cat From Natsume Sōseki’s 1906 novel I Am a Cat
A lot of Japanese people can recite the first few lines. It was my first exposure to a story from the perspective of a cat. It essentially follows this cat’s life and their observations of humans. It also shows how people of the time treated cats.
Salem (Sabrina the Teenage Witch)
Sabrina and friends, including the magical talking cat Salem, in the Nineties sitcom.
Bob D’Amico/Disney General Entertainment ContentGetty Images
I just think that any mainstream media where a cat is depicted as an important part of a family and the household is important. We live in a world where a lot of people think of cats as furry pieces of furniture. I like to think that Salem inspired at least, let’s say, 1,000 millennials to think of cats more and maybe want to adopt a cat.
