"God have mercy on the [domestic longhair] who doubts what [s]he's sure of"

I've been listening to one of the best Springsteen albums ever, Tunnel of Love . When we were kids, my sister (codename: Cordelia) and I came up with a theory, convincingly backed up by textual evidence, that the song " Brilliant Disguise " was about our cat Sugar, a beautiful and secretive creature one was likely to cross paths with "out on the edge of town." The person "call[ing her] name from underneath our willow" was, of course, Mom (who went outside every night to call her in), and the thing Sugar had "tucked in shame underneath [her] pillow" was, as I recall, a hairball. It made sense at the time. This is the album with "Tougher Than the Rest," "Spare Parts," "Cautious Man," "Tunnel of Love," "One Step Up," etc., plus, Bruce Springsteen wearing a bolo tie. If someone said to me, "For a period of one month, your half of every conversation about anything that matters must be co