With dense marble pattern fur and webbed hind feet, but front claws, this lesser known semiaquatic South American water opossum is an unusual hybrid – and the only marsupial to have pouches in both sexes. Chironectes minimus is the only animal left of its genus, leaving behind its now extinct cousin, the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. And unlike that animal, it seems to have been a longstanding, adaptable success, fleeting between water and land, around since the the Pliocene epoch, between 5.3 million to 2.5 million years ago. Inhabiting freshwater streams and lakes from Mexico through Central and South America to Argentina its probably comes from the name of the Oyapok River in French Guiana.
It’s both cute and a little scary. But are there any such creatures in song lyrics? And if so, in what context? Not specifically the lesser seen yapok as a word, but the opossum in general, including its tree climbing more northern cousins, makes several appearances.
Country singer Gretchen Wilson's humorously jaunty and catchy song There Goes The Neighborhood is all about the local community and snobbish attitudes from new arrivals. It seems they look down on the narrator's loud, hillbilly ways. Playing opossum, or possum, means to play dead, or keep quiet.
They got poodles and pools and lawnmowers
I got pitbulls and pistols and ponds
Yeah, they're playing opossum while I'm living high on the hog
There goes the neighborhood
Trashin' it up just like you knew we would
You throw a hillbilly log into the Hollywood
And there goes the neighborhood
More playing opossum now, in a very different style, with some slick, fast hip hop by Sean Shakespeare:
Hip hop, the road we walk, the way we talk
The greats of yesterday paved the way
We pay homage on every stage we play
Stopping's not an option
I don't see a problem
Why're the ones boasting often the first to play opossum
Too much talk in their doctrine
Peacocks squakin' like clockwork. Proceed with caution
The Maryland rock band Clutch meanwhile capture a particular community with Opossum Minister from their 2007 album From Beale Street To Oblivion
Juliana Hatfield's Taxicab, from 2011's There's Always Another Girl, uses the animal as a metaphor for getting lost in the wilderness:
In a swerve on a curve
See an opossum through the glass
I'm dizzy in the back
Can you please tell me where i'm at
Taxicab
You're going so fast
Take me back
Taxicab
Let up on the gas
Bring me back
How did i get here
I spell burning leaves
I don't recognise the scenery
Sadly possums are vulnerable to invasion by humans and like many creatures, are sometimes victims of the road. A quieter, sadder song now by the band Pinegrove, about a certain Neighbor, meeting a tragic death. But what to do about it?
Mid-sized opossum in front of my house, dyin'
Collided with the vehicle driving it out through the lightnin'
She falls down softly in the middle of the lane, incomin'
And it's clearly incumbent on me to run out to her and do somethin'
So I approach her there and I'm suddenly squirming
And I'm scared and I'm tryna do right, but I guess I desecrate everything
Finally, on a more upbeat note, the opossum even straddles the language barrier. The German singer-songwriter Judith Holofernes is a particular fan on the animal in this fantasy tribute song:
So then, care to whistle up a few more from your music collection? Please feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
You can also get in touch the contact page, and also visit us on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share. New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
The yapok’s tail is long and powerful for swimming
Please make any donation to help keep Song Bar running: