Well now, ‘rodents’ as a topic for Song Lyric Sunday certainly takes us off the beaten track, musically speaking, although it may or may not tell us more than we need to know about Clive’s – who set the challenge – psyche.

As it turns out, there are quite a few songs featuring rats or mice, the two of the over two thousand species of rodent with which we are probably most familiar. If you think about it, though, there’s also the likes of beavers, porcupines and guinea pigs. Unaccountably, though, the songwriting community seems to have ignored the potential of creatures such as lagidium ahuacaense – the Ecuadorean mountain viscacha, with which we are all so familiar

The Boomtown Rats (‘Rat Trap’) are an obvious go-to, but perhaps just too obvious, and even being shown the rack wouldn’t persuade me to offer up Michael Jackson’s ‘Ben’ for your delectation

There were, however, two less mainstream songs running around in my head: one was Bob Dylan’s ‘Motorpsycho Nightmare’ with the quite well-known line ‘unpatriotic rotten doctor commie rat’. In the end, though, I settled on this: Frank Zappa, with vocal realisation by the illustrious Captain Beefheart. Further supporting its case for selection, it also comes from the album ‘Hot Rats’.

I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back
Pair a khaki pants with my shoe shined black

Got a little lady… walk the street
Tellin’ all the boys that she can’t be beat

Twenny dollah bill (I can set you straight)
Meet me onna corner boy ‘n don’t be late

Man in a suit with a bow-tie neck
Wanna buy a grunt with a third party check

Standin’ onna porch of the Lido Hotel
Floozies in the lobby love the way I sell:
HOT MEAT
HOT RATS
HOT CATS
HOT RITZ
HOT ROOTS
HOT SOOTS

Written by Frank Zappa

Song Lyric Sunday 28 December 2025