Would You Like A Song About Your Pet?

Written By Rick Sorkin

How Passing Time And Keeping Sane During The Pandemic Led To Professional Pet Songwriting For Successful Commercial Campaigns

I’ve written hundreds of songs you probably haven't heard, and been in a ton of bands you definitely haven't heard of. Over the years I’ve delicately balanced life as a musician with my career as a digital producer, business development executive and social media strategist. 

Music often and necessarily took the back seat to my helping the biggest brands, celebrities and entertainment properties reach their social and digital goals, from my time as an executive at Creative Artists Agency through co-founding and building Remarkable Digital Group (NYC/LA) with my partner, Gavin Blawie. 

I’ve worked to merge these two worlds whenever possible through things like commercial and tv music placements, podcast theme-song writing and providing music for brand, talent & influencer social media content. But it wasn’t until the pandemic that I finally and fully integrated music-making with brand stewardship, and I sort of owe it all to my cat. 

Cut to 2020:

When the pandemic hit, commercial music opportunities froze and I found myself disinterested in writing/recording my usual indie rock fare. I was in a creative rut, but also needed to MAKE SOMETHING to pass the time and feel a sense of control during what was a challenging time for most of us. My girlfriend had moved in with her cat Zephyr, and sheltering in place, at home, full time, he and I became fast best friends. Like, really really close. One day I was playing piano and he jumped on my back. Without thinking, I began playing and singing a new song, ‘Cat on my Back’

The next day, ‘Cat Food Cat Eat Food’ poured out of me. And so on and so on, each day, until I found myself with somewhere around sixty of these short, absurdist songs that made me and friends & family smile. I knew I was on to something. 

I started sharing these on TikTok, and quickly grew a respectable and engaged following. Apparently channeling inner rage and existential dread into earnestly produced genre send-ups seemed to be working.

Here are my 5 favorite comments, from strangers, in no particular order:

  • This is unironically the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. -@rat.in.a.cage.cos 

  • I literally cried I was laughing so hard. This is gold. -Teami Blends

  • Dang that’s good at first I thought it wouldn’t be good but dang -Anna B

  • ngl, this song is fire bruv -✨Beanie✨

  • So when does this go viral? -Lady Renaissance 

Hey Kid, Wanna Go Pro? (Teddy’s Turn)

Remarkable Digital Group was brought on as digital agency-of-record (AOR) for an Insurance company at the time, and their then-current campaign just so happened to have a pet tie-in. So we pitched and activated a campaign rewarding real pet owners with songs for their pets. This was the moment that my musical descent into madness began paying literal dividends. 

Would you like a song about your pet?

Gavin and I used this Insurance company proof-of-concept to pitch and win an assignment with publicly-traded fresh pet food giant Freshpet. We were in the pet food marketing) big leagues now. Once briefed, we developed a social currency campaign, an under-appreciated-yet-proven tactic to fuel engagement, celebrating the brand through the feeds of pet owners and their pets. We made dozens of the pet songs for lucky Freshpet pets- this wasn’t a contest, this was social diffusion and second order conversation at its best, where pets and their custom songs and videos were chosen and created based on brand mention and already-demonstrated loyalty.

I was now in the actual business of writing and producing songs for pets...from the comfort of my home studio. I was, as they say, living the dream.

Freshpet’s feeds and TikTok’s FYP still actively feature our #FreshpetSoundBites campaign. Watching them take on new lives as pet parents use this (dare I say) art for their own personalized expressions (that all lead back to Freshpet) has been an indescribable delight.

I can now look back proudly on what started out as a true passion play - something to pass the time and make us feel something good during an otherwise difficult time (2020, lolz) and ended up with over 150 songs and videos that I wrote, produced, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered - that in turn, made other people feel good, feel seen, and feel like a part of something. For that, I am truly grateful.

Rick Sorkin