What do you think Della and the Dealer means?

Hoyt Axton: Della and the Dealer Meaning

Album cover for Della and the Dealer album cover

Della and the Dealer Lyrics

It was Della and a dealer and a dog named Jake,
And a cat named Kalamazoo,
Left the city in a pick-up truck.
Gonna make some dreams come true.
Yeah, they rolled out west where the wild sun sets,
And the coyote bays at the moon.
Della and a...

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  1. anonymous
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     Sep 5th 2023 !⃝

    Hoyt Axton is one of the four, he’s not Della that’s for sure nor the dealer,the Cat was cool and never said a mumbling word so that leaves Jake the Dog.
    He also says that Randy Boone was a friend of his so when the Dealer threatened Randy with his knife the Dog shot him (as he had a gun) to protect his friend then the four fled the scene.
    Its a great song because it leads you to believe that there was only two humans travelling to Tucson with a couple of pets!

  2. anonymous
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     Jun 26th 2023 !⃝

    I believe that Jake the dog was a man who was as ugly as a dog, possibly disfigured from birth, an accident or from war. The cat was an individual who couldn't or didn't talk that much and when he did, nobody understood him because he mumbled. The dealer was definitely into drugs and poor Della was abused by him. When she finally met someone who treated her with respect, she fell for him and decided once and for all, to escape from the relationship. No murder took place as it was self defense but they did leave the scene so legal ramifications could come into play. Over all, it's a nice song with a beat that you can dance to.

  3. anonymous
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     Feb 3rd 2023 !⃝

    Heard this for the first time when Hoyt was on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati in 1979. Great singer and he was pretty good acting on WKRP too.

  4. anonymous
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     Oct 31st 2022 !⃝

    Loved this as a kid many years ago. Listening again, I now realise that the dealer was drugs not cards, and that there's an ambiguity about who survives. Still think that the dog and the cat are animals, like Brian in Family Guy. Great song.

  5. anonymous
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     Jul 23rd 2022 !⃝

    Well what's for sure is it was many moons ago on a cool desert night and I ain't sayin anything more

  6. anonymous
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     May 22nd 2022 !⃝

    I think most people are missing something that pulls everything together when you keep in mind that Axton himself was a cocaine user....not only are the cat and dog real people, but....

    THE CAT IS ACTUALLY THE STORYTELLER.

    He is being purposely vague as they were all involved in some shady dealings (hanging out with what is obviously a drug dealer and murderer), but he is no snitch....he's a "cool cat".
    The name "Kalamazoo" is an obvious ghost name in order to maintain anonymity.

    The major clue to this is that he refers to Boone as a "friend of MINE". It's the only time in the song that he refers to himself in the first person, indicating he is in some way personally involved in the story and not just telling it, but it's enough when you consider the rest.

    It isn't Boone who dies, it's the dealer. This is made obvious when he refers to Della's "lover" as the one who got away. If he meant the dealer in that line, he would have just said "dealer"....there would be no other reason to change it up since he was referring to the dealer as "The Dealer" in every other line, and it was already indicated that Della was falling for Boone, which is what sparked the dealer's anger in the first place.

    I would note here that he never references the dealer's real name, but he does with everybody else. Della is Della and "the Dog" is Jake and the guitar player is Boone. This alone indicates that the dealer is not really on the same level of relationship that Della, Jake, Boone and The Cat are on, and the following line goes so far as to insinuate that the storyteller (The Cat Kalamazoo) doesn't really think too highly of the dealer in the first place:

    "The Dealer was a killer, he was evil and mean"

    Again, the insinuation throughout the whole song, as evidenced by the very hooky chorus, is that the "cat" (or storyteller) is being purposely vague as he is no snitch, but this is a story he can't help telling at least in a vague sense, and he leaves it up to the listener to read between the lines.
    The whole point of the song is not really what happened in Tucson that one night, instead it's that what happened that night is just one story out of many that The Cat (or storyteller) could and would tell about all of the characters if he wasn't as cool as he is.

    It's misdirection on several levels, but the clues are right there if you look for them. To me, that's the true genius of this song.

    Then again, who knows? Maybe the rye drinking cat and gun toting dog really were just creatures in a drug addled dream sequence and the card dealer killed the guitar player out of jealousy. Either way, Hoyt Axton was pretty great.

  7. anonymous
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     Sep 3rd 2021 !⃝

    So what I’m making
    Della was with the dealer. (Drug)
    Then took a shine to the guy in the bar Randy Boone.
    She then copped off with him and there was a shot out.
    Della, Randy, cat and dog then made off in the truck.
    I’m guessing cat and dog were just friends. Cat was clearly the quiet one. Spoke little. Observers everything.
    Correct me if I’m way off track

  8. anonymous
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     Feb 3rd 2021 !⃝

    Interesting note: There was a singing actor named Randy Boone who played in The Virginian. Can't say that it is anything more than a coincidence.

  9. anonymous
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     Jun 17th 2020 !⃝

    I believe the Dog is a relation to Della and Della is in an abusive relationship with the dealer but is also a love interest of Boone's.
    During the course of events in the bar; the dealer says or does something to Della that results in the dog intervening. The dealer ends up in a situation in that he has brought a knife to what turns into a gun fight and its actually the dog who kills the dealer while the cat (having his shot of rye) witnesses.
    With that the cat has his tales to tell about the others but he is cool and of course never says a mumblin' word

  10. anonymous
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     Apr 7th 2019 !⃝

    It's just one of Hoyt Axton's great storytelling songs. The cat was cool, and...

  11. anonymous
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     Apr 6th 2019 !⃝

    I always loved this song as a kid, because I thought that Jake and Kalamazoo are an actual dog and cat (I still think they are). I assumed they were, as in Hoyt's song, Joy to the World he sings about a bullfrog. Anyway, since I finally decided to look up the lyrics because I never could understand that one line I always thought it was "He swore and he spoke on a sinister note" only to find it's "He snorted his coke through a century note". Now I know the dealer wasn't a card dealer, but a drug dealer. That kind of ruins the song for me, as I always thought there was a card game, the dealer gets jealous of Randy making eyes at Della, and then there's the murder...

  12. anonymous
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     Feb 13th 2019 !⃝

    Wait, why is the dog not just a dog and the cat just a cat? What's wrong with some good ol' anthropomorphism?

  13. anonymous
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     Jan 28th 2019 !⃝

    I don’t buy into the dog and cat being humans. Seems to me that the story teller (not Hoyt, personally, but whoever is telling the story which is being sung by Hoyt) is describing what he saw in a psychedelic dream. Either a dream, or what that person thinks he saw while he was high on cocaine. I love the music of the song, but - never having been high on a psychedelic trip - I really love the way Hoyt, the song writer, gave me a taste of what it’s like to be tripping like that.
    And, of course, you just can’t beat Hoyt’s incredible voice. So very sorry he’s gone in person, but he’ll always be alive in his music.

  14. anonymous
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     Jan 14th 2018 !⃝

    The "dog" is what some black guys call each other and "the cat" could be a cool white guy who didn't talk a lot. In the verse about what they all had the "dog" had a gun and the "cat" had a shot of rye so they were not animals but people?

  15. anonymous
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     Oct 16th 2017 !⃝

    If you think about it, Kalamazoo was a brand of guitar years ago. So Della, dealer, dog and a guitar makes more sense.

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