Della and The Dealer

Della and The Dealer is a country song written and sung by Hoyt Axton, from his 1974 album A Rusty Old Halo.

Though the song wasn't a chart topper (in fact it wasn't even the highest ranking single from the album), it became popular due to the considerable amount of ambiguity involving the characters in the song.

The song tells of a foursome heading out west in a pickup truck, hoping to "make some dreams come true". The ambiguity begins at the outset, when the four characters are named: Della (a female), an unknown male identified only as "The Dealer" (in what he deals isn't stated, though he is portrayed later as a cocaine user -- Axton himself struggled with cocaine addiction throughout his life), and "a dog named Jake and a cat named Kalamazoo". While "dog" and "cat" are used in American slang to reference people, the dog is given a fairly common human name while the cat is given a name more in common with a pet's name (though it could also be a nickname for someone from the Michigan city of the same name). The song's chorus goes further to state that "if that cat could talk, what tales he'd tell, about Della and The Dealer and the dog as well, but the cat was cool, and he never said a mumblin' word", adding more ambiguity.

The foursome arrives in Tucson where, at a local cafe featuring live music, a guitarist ("Randy Boone"; the singer says Boone was a friend of his) sings a love song to Della, sparking her interest but also the jealousy of The Dealer, who swears death on Boone. While The Dealer has a knife, still more ambiguity is added in that "the dog had a gun, and the cat had a shot of rye".

A physical altercation ensues, leaving two people standing and one dead. A foursome quickly leaves the establishment in the aforementioned pickup, consisting of "Della and her lover" along with the dog and cat, which brings up the final question: was the lover The Dealer, or Boone?