Why Bono, Pharrell, The National wrote songs in memory of an artist's late cat
For those of us who've lost a longtime pet, the grief can be overwhelming, but might seem inconsequential to others.
It's something French conceptual artist Sophie Calle realised when she lost her beloved cat, Souris (or mouse, in English), back in 2014.
So Calle opted to pay tribute to her cat in a way that she only could: An all-star concept album full of songs dedicated to Souris.
On Souris Calle, the likes of Bono, Pharrell Williams, The National, Michael Stipe, Jarvis Cocker, and Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes, to name a few, contributed songs about the cat, or wider themes of loss and grief.
About 10 artists on the album knew the cat personally, but Calle told the Wall Street Journal she met these artists through chance encounters, or through friends of friends.
In the first track, Bono leaves a voicemail message which is actually a poem to Souris. Williams contributes a short instrumental in "A Cat Named Mouse," while The National's "Le violon blanc de Monsieur Souris" sounds like one of the band's songs, but about a cat.
Calle challenges the idea that "we seem ridiculous" when we grieve for our pets in a way that's similar to grieving for humans.
"When you say you’re sad about the cat, it’s a bit obscene for people," she told ArtNet.
"You can’t say that. I mean, if I say my mother or my father is dead, everyone tells me ‘Oh, poor thing, she lost her mother, oh, poor thing, she lost her father,’ but if we say that about our cat, we seem ridiculous. It makes me laugh, when for me, in my daily life, it was almost more violent, because I lived with my cat. I didn’t live with my parents."
The 37-track, 95-minute album, which debuted at Calle's solo show last week, is available to stream.
