Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: This Heat (1979)
Lyrics:
We ate Soda, the embassy cat
Poor Soda's coda
No more da capo, she's decapitated
Running 'round the room, half-baked
The other half is bacon and sizzling in the frying pan
We ate the TV
We ate the armchair
We ate the telephone
We ate the styrofoam
My God, how we got so far only to reach so low
The Russians saved the janitor
Soda was a little tough to eat
No wonder she was hard meat
Out on the roof with the feline goose
But Soda had a heart of gold
The ambassador's wife had the liver
"Please deliver us from evil," she cried
"I know all about cats and their heavy vibes"
She was a very hip ambassador's wife
From an interview with The Quietus, Charles Hayward stated that the lyrics were inspired by a night watching the news on the telly where the Fall of Saigon was covered and then a local news story about a cat drinking whiskey was shown directly after it:
"In my head, these two stories sort of fused and I went home and wrote the ‘Fall of Saigon.’"
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: This Heat (1979)
Lyrics:
We ate Soda, the embassy cat
Poor Soda's coda
No more da capo, she's decapitated
Running 'round the room, half-baked
The other half is bacon and sizzling in the frying pan
We ate the TV
We ate the armchair
We ate the telephone
We ate the styrofoam
My God, how we got so far only to reach so low
The Russians saved the janitor
Soda was a little tough to eat
No wonder she was hard meat
Out on the roof with the feline goose
But Soda had a heart of gold
The ambassador's wife had the liver
"Please deliver us from evil," she cried
"I know all about cats and their heavy vibes"
She was a very hip ambassador's wife
From an interview with The Quietus, Charles Hayward stated that the lyrics were inspired by a night watching the news on the telly where the Fall of Saigon was covered and then a local news story about a cat drinking whiskey was shown directly after it:
"In my head, these two stories sort of fused and I went home and wrote the ‘Fall of Saigon.’"
