"The Rat" is a song by The Walkmen, released as the first single from their second album, Bows + Arrows in 2004. It has received high acclaim from critics, featuring in many publications' best-of-the-decade lists.

Composition and recording [link]

Singer Hamilton Leithauser said the song originated in a jam session when the band were "just screwin' around." The band's drummer Matt Barrick instigated the track by playing a fast drum pattern. The band then quickly built this foundation into the full track, Leithauser said "we threw some chords on it, I wrote the words in five minutes." The song had been included in the band's live sets as early as February 2002, with slightly different lyrics than the recorded version.^[1]

The band's usual method was to self-produce their material. However, after unsuccessful attempts to record the layered electric organ and guitar, they decided to record the track with a professional record producer at the advice of their label. This was later viewed as an unsatisfactory move by bassist Walter Martin who said "It doesn't sound right at all. I think the production for the rest of the album makes the music sound big and live. But it just sounds dense and solid."^[2]

Ezra Koenig, who worked as an intern for the band, says the song was originally titled "Girls At Night" and was recorded a year after it was first played to him.^[3]

Music video [link]

The video features a live performance shot in black and white making use of chiaroscuro.

Critical reception [link]

The track has received highly positive critical acclaim, featuring in many end-of-decade lists. It was named thirteenth best track of the decade by NME^[4] and 20th best track of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media who named it "a St. Valentine's Day Massacre of relentless drums, bass, and guitar."^[5] Rolling Stone called it "one of the greatest songs of the century".^[1] Modern Drummer magazine praised Barrick's performance as "a jaw-dropping exercise in precision and velocity".^[6] In October 2011, NME placed it at number 31 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".^[7]

Stylus Magazine took a different slant saying that the song's 'one-hit wonder' success "was the worst thing to ever happen to The Walkmen. It brought the iPod-lazy—singles, MP3s, mix and matchers—to their shows and records."^[8]

Cover versions [link]

Florence and The Machine covered the track as part of a series on Myspace Music.^[9]

Track listing [link]

CD & 7" [link]

"The Rat"
"Clementine"

References [link]

https://wn.com/The_Rat_(song)

The Rat

The Rat may refer to:

a nickname for Niki Lauda (born 1949), Austrian former Formula One race car driver

a nickname for Ken Linseman (born 1958), former National Hockey League player

a nickname for Jeff Ratcliffe (born 1976), former professional lacrosse player

The Rat (1925 film), a film by Ivor Novello based on his play of the same name

The Rat (1937 film), another film adaptation of the play

"The Rat" (Beavis and Butt-head), an episode of the American television show Beavis and Butt-head

"The Rat" (Prison Break episode), an episode of the American television show Prison Break

"The Rat" (song), a 2004 song by The Walkmen from their album Bows + Arrows

"The Rat", a song by Dead Confederate from their album Wrecking Ball

The Rat (novel), a book by Günter Grass published in German in 1986 as Die Rättin

The Rathskellar (The Rat), a now-defunct live music venue in Kenmore Square, Boston, Massachusetts

The Rat, a character from Haruki Murakami's 'Trilogy of the Rat' Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase

The Rat (novel)

The Rat (German: Die Rättin, literally The Ratess) is a 1986 novel by the West German writer Günter Grass.

Structure and content

The plot is composed of many narrative strands and oscillates between fairytale, travelogue and surreal novel. It also contains cinematic perspectives and some poems. Grass incorporates some narrative threads of his success novels The Tin Drum as well as the Butt; further passages on maritime disasters, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, anticipate aspects of his book Crabwalk.

Grass has conceived the novel as a counter-image to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's picture of the education of the human race: Humanity (Grass used deliberately old-fashioned word "mankind") have indeed learned "the virtue to eat with spoons, diligently the subjunctive and practice tolerance", all enlightenment but not their tendency to get their violence under control.

In the dreams of the narrator, who seems to be in a spaceship orbiting the devastated earth, a speaking female rat compels the narrator to review the destruction of humanity, and follow their dominant position by rats. Rats build accordingly, in a world destroyed through deforestation, pollution, and nuclear warfare, a new civilization based on solidarity.

The Rat (Beavis and Butt-head)

"The Rat" is the ninth episode of Season 8 and 209th episode overall of the American animated television series Beavis and Butt-head. It aired on MTV on December 1, 2011, with "Spill".

Plot

Beavis and Butt-head wake up after napping on the couch and find a rat causing havoc in their house and eating their nachos. They go to the hardware store to get a mousetrap, and find it difficult to set it up, constantly trapping their own fingers in it. Eventually they set it with a corn chip as bait and return to the couch. Butt-head sends Beavis to check on the trap, but Beavis falls for the bait and traps himself again. Later, they hear a noise in the kitchen and find the rat trapped, but still alive. Butt-head sweeps the rat towards Beavis, who accidentally releases it from the trap. The rat is grateful and follows Beavis in admiration.

The pair go to work at Burger World, with the rat in tow. Beavis lets the rat work in the kitchen with him, and takes it out on the tray when a woman orders. She is shocked and calls the manager, who is angry with Beavis and Butt-head. As the rat went missing while they were being told off, they search around for it, and find that it has given birth to a litter of babies.

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