Since 2003, I’ve been singing the merits of a cat named Virtute.

I met Virtute while driving to the Salem area to interview Oregon author Floyd Skloot, on that enchanting stretch of forest-lined highway before I reached Detroit Lake.

I was listening to the song ”Plea From a Cat Named Virtute” on “Reconstruction Site,” the third album from The Weakerthans, a great four-piece punk band from Winnipeg, Canada, led by John K. Samson, former bass player from Propagandhi, who had his own songwriting itch to scratch.

Samson assembled a tight band in The Weakerthans: In 2006, sans Samson, they recorded and toured with Greg Gaffin of Bad Religion on his “Cold as the Clay” solo album. His songs are without a doubt some of the most intelligent punk-rock wordsmithing I’ve ever heard, a bit deeper and more metaphorical than the funny lyrics of Dr. Frank of The Mr. T Experience.

The man has taught creative writing at the University of British Columbia, helped found an indie press and collected his poems and lyrics in the book “Lyrics and Poems, 1997-2012.” A full month rarely passes before I put on one The Weakerthans’ four albums, released between 1997 and 2007. My introduction to them had been with their second, 2000’s “Left and Leaving” record, specifically the earworm “Aside” where I first heard Samson’s way with words.

But what I really started writing this about is the Virtute the cat saga. It was on that drive to Salem when the lyrics I was hearing in the spectacularly built-up “Plea from a Cat Named Virtute” hit me with new ears, the way the boredom and isolation can lead to an introspective moment.

“Wait,” I thought to myself. “Is this song from the point of view of a cat?” And it’s not just any cat. Virtute’s a wise, protective, encouraging cat, though the sharpened claws of its catness come through its plea to its owner about said owner’s self-destructive tendencies. “Why don’t you ever wanna play? I’m tired of this piece of string/You sleep as much as I do now/And you don’t eat much of anything,” Virtute says. “And listen, about those bitter songs you sing/They’re not helping anything/They won’t make you strong.”

Virtute suggests a party: “I’ll cater with all the birds that I can kill/Let their tiny feathers fill … disappointment.” In the song’s bridge, Virtute breaks it down: “I swear I’m gonna bite you hard and taste your tinny blood/If you don’t stop the self-defeating lies you’ve been repeating since the day you brought me home/I know you’re … strong.”

It’s the dramatic pause before strong, and the incredible rock-out instrumental section that follows, that really drives the point home. There’s something simple and profoundly honest about a cat observing, and trying to save, its messed-up owner. It has reduced me to tears at times, listening to this song.

I’d always wanted to hear more from Virtute, and fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Samson wasn’t done. On 2007’s ”Reunion Tour” album, track five starts with a slow, somber beat, fair warning of heartbreak that lies ahead in “Virtute the Cat Explains her Departure,” which had “something to do with the rain … the way the back lane came alive, half-moon whispered, ‘Go.’”

Virtute hears her owner searching for her, “pleading in an uncertain key/Singing the sound that you found for me.” If you don’t get that last line, I don’t think you’ve ever owned a pet.

Column: Good grief, losing a pet is hard

I thought things had taken a dark turn for Virtute with that song, and then I heard “Virtute at Rest,” the last track on Samson’s 2016 solo album, ”Winter Wheat.” In the first lines, we learn Virtute’s owner has gotten clean, and the clarity of months of sobriety and antidepressants “have built me (Virtute) a bed in the back of your brain.” In other words, Virtute lives in memory only, but knocks one more plea out of the ballpark: “Know I am proud of the steps you have made/Know it will never be easy or simple/Know I will dig in my claws when you stray/So let us rest here like we used to/In a line of late afternoon sun.”

I was a puddle. Virtute has been living in my brain for two decades, and if you have ever lost a pet that enriched your life, or maybe saved it, maybe you can understand how moving this song might be.

There are playlists where other fans of Samson and The Weakerthans — or maybe just Virtute itself — have compiled the Virtute saga. One or two of them have some other songs that mention cats, such as in “Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist” in which Samson sings a line that mentions “Enlist the cat in the impending class-war.” Virtute the Revolutionary has a nice ring to it.

Right now, Weakerthans are inactive. If soaring punk rock is not your thing, but string music is, there’s a Frank Turner cover of “Plea from a Cat Named Virtute,” which one Youtube viewer described as “A worthy tribute to a quietly extraordinary band.”

Samson’s current recording project with his partner, Christine Fellows, is called Vivat Virtute, which reportedly means “Virtute Lives.”

In 2023, they released the three-song “June First” EP, which marked 10 years without alcohol for Samson, Brooklyn Vegan reported. There does seem to be a reference to a disappearing cat on the song ”All My Ex-Boyfriends Are You” from their “June First” EP released in 2023: “That’s why I guard every door you meow to get through, now that all my ex-boyfriends are you.”

Needless to say, I’m glad I finally found “Virtute at Rest.” It only took me 21 years to hear the breadth (I think) of Virtute’s life in song. But no matter how much time goes by, the Virtute saga has legs. I highly recommend you hop on your favorite streaming service or to your favorite record purveyor’s place of business and get to know Virtute yourself.