'The female cat') is a 1960 song written and recorded by Gino Paoli.
[1][2] In the following months, without any promotion and thanks to word of mouth it eventually proved to be a surprise hit and Paoli's breakthrough, selling up to over one hundred thousand copies in a week.
[1] The song is a nostalgical autobiographical portrait of Paoli's simple, bohémien life in his small apartment in Boccadasse, Genoa.
[2] According to Paoli, the cat represented "all my hopes, my romanticism, my desire to look up in the air, to look at the sky".
[3] Artists who also recorded the song include Ornella Vanoni, Gianni Morandi, Little Tony, Róisín Murphy, Skip Battin and Carla Boni.