This is a fantastic tune written by the great American whistler Joanie Madden when she was only 15. Indeed she says on thesession.org that it was her first composition and retells this great story:

“The Cat’s Meow is the first tune I ever wrote. I was going to Ireland to compete in the Fleadh Cheoil at the All-Ireland Championship and didn’t have a good jig. I was looking for a three-part one. After searching and scouring records and music books for weeks to no avail, I decided to try to write one. I wrote it one night very late sitting at the kitchen table. My father got up to go to work at 4:30 in the morning, and I had just finished it. He asked what tune that was. I said I had just written it. He said ‘What?! Play that again. That’s lovely!’”

“It was actually another competitor, Siobhan O’Donnell from England, who taped the competition and learned it and started playing the tune over in London, where it became very popular first. It’s been very flattering to hear that tune played all over the world!”

“I named the tune after Sean McGlynn, who was an amazing accordion player from County Galway. He taught Billy McComiskey to play and was the man who bought me my first flute and the reason I play a silver flute to this day. The last time I saw him before he was murdered, we were at a session at Pat Henry’s house in the Bronx. We were all saying our goodbyes on the street and, as Sean was driving home in his Volkswagen van, I shouted out to him that one of his headlights was out. He responded as he drove off, ‘I’m just looking back at you Joanie like a cat winking, because you are the cat’s meow!’”

Take some time to listen to it slowly and then it is easier to learn. I found a bunch of places to hear it on Youtube, but it’s well worth slowing it down to begin with (see instructions on How to use this website to help you learn if you don’t know how to slow down Youtube). As with the mouse tunes… sometimes hard to find as competing with so many cat videos!

Joanie Madden playing the Cat’s Meow with an orchestra
Tin whistle (fast)
Not so fast on a mandolin
The Mouse set (fiddles, guitar and others)
Tenor Guitar
Banjo, guitar and fiddle
Concertina (not so fast)

Pdf is here