The title of this Roy Orbison style melancholy song might offend - "Sweet ****" (the B-word for a female dog) BUT check out this SWEET story of the song and its title, as told to Music Fog:
"I think it was when I had my cat spayed that I first said 'so long, sweet ****,' hoping her behavior would change. It struck me as a good title. Then I wrote the words and had them around for a while, then my oldest cat died, one I'd had for half my life. So I got to thinking about all the Roy Orbison tearjerkers whilst digging a cat's grave, then all the music came. So I used the sadness of Max's passing to add to the, uh, emotional authenticity, or something. It's my mom's favorite tune of mine. I dedicate it to her all the time. Mom gets the joke. Amen."
Song plays well with pop/rock, AAA, Americana and country programming - the Roy Orbison-style treatment of the song is catchy and pleasantly familiar.