Here are a couple of songs I wrote last year when we were suffering with a series of weekend Mudcat crashes:

MISSIN' THE MUDCAT BLUES


I got the blues 'cause the Mudcat's gone and crashed again;
My God it hurts, the Mudcat's crashed again--
Good golly Miss Molly, when will them crashes end?

I gotta have the 'cat, 'cause I got a lotta stuff to say;
Oh, I need them threads 'cause I got so much to say.
But Benjamin and Barry Finn and all the threads have gone away.

I need Barbara and Art, I need Alison and Mick,
With only silence from the swamps, I know I'm gettin' sick,
Tim and Chet and Northfolk, you're gone but what can I do?
I'd ask Joe Offer, but dammit, he's gone, too.

With no Harpgirl and no Raven I'm stuck all alone in lonesome hell;
Bill's in Alabama, and there's no Wolfgang here in hell,
Roger, Pete, and Ewan, Mike and Murray, they're all gone as well.

There's no word out of Brisbane, and Vancouver's quiet, too;
There's no word out of Brisbane, and Vancouver's quiet, too.
Max,. you gotta get me back on line, 'cause what else am I gonna do?

(the four verse line is sung to the same twelve bars, a la "Long Line Skinner.")

Missing the mudcat on the banks of the ohio.

I met my Baby on a thread;
Our souls are one, that's what she said.
She said she'd always be with me,
But the Mudcat's down--where can she be?

(Cho.)
Max, only say you'll bring 'em back:
Without the threads, what good's my Mac?
Each time a weekend rolls around,
I'm all alone 'cause the threads are down.

We always met, my Baby and me,
At the topmost thread just after three.
We'd play thread-tag 'til time for bed,
But not tonight, 'cause the threads are dead.

It's Saturday night, and I'm alone,
All I can do is weep and moan,
All I can do is cry them blues,
My Baby's gone, nuthin' left to lose.

--seed