Mr. Custer Mr. Custer "Mr. Custer" is a march novelty song, sung by Larry Verne, and written by Al De Lory, Fred Darian, and Joseph Van Winkle. It was a song in the United States in 1960, topping the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart for the issue dated October 10, 1960, and remained there for one week. It is a comical song about a soldier's plea to General Custer before the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn against the Sioux, which he did not want to fight. In 1964, Verne recorded and released a sequel novelty song entitled "Return of Mr. Custer,"
Growltiger's Last Stand is "somewhat missing" after an incident involving a Siamese cat. "Growltiger's Last Stand" describes how he meets his fate when he least expects it. Besides the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical setting in "Cats" the English composer Humphrey Searle composed a musical setting of "Growltiger's Last Stand" as the second of his "Two Practical Cats" for speaker, flute, cello and guitar. In the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats" the poem is used nearly verbatim as the lyrics of the song, except that one stanza has been cut. The song appears as a reminiscence by "Gus the Theatre Cat", who "once played