Rat Trap

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For other uses, see Rat trap (disambiguation).

"Rat Trap"
Single by The Boomtown Rats
from the album A Tonic for the Troops
B-side"So Strange"[2]
Released6 October 1978 (1978-10-06) [1]
GenreNew wave[3]
Length4:55
Label
Robert John "Mutt" Lange[2]
The Boomtown Rats singles chronology
"Like Clockwork"
(1978) 		"Rat Trap"
(1978) 		"
I Don't Like Mondays
"
(1979)

"Rat Trap" is a single by

UK Singles Chart for two weeks in November 1978,[4] the first single by a punk or new wave act to do so.[5]
It was written by Bob Geldof,
Summer Nights", a hit single for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John from the soundtrack of Grease, at number one in the UK chart after the latter's seven-week reign.[7]

Song

It is a rock song, telling the tale of a boy called Billy who feels the depressing town he lives in is a "rat trap".

When the band performed the song on

Musicians' Union had forbidden me to play saxophone on the video, as obviously I hadn't done so on the record. But I saw a candelabra on the piano at the shoot and I put a mouthpiece in the central candle holder and played it. The impact of video came home when during the next few British gigs kids pulled out candelabras from nowhere and began playing them during the sax solo in 'Rat Trap'".[8]

In the music video, which was directed by David Mallet, various members of the band are seen reading copies of the novel Rat Trap by the Welsh author Craig Thomas, although the book has no connection to the song. The lyric about "pus and grime..." was changed to "blood and tears pour down the drains and the sewers", although Geldof mumbled the line anyway.[9]

One of the more popular Boomtown Rats songs, it was performed by them at Live Aid and is still performed by Geldof to this day. During the Live Aid performance, Geldof's microphone went dead (apparently from the cable being damaged), causing Simon Crowe's harmony vocals to become the only audible voice on the last half of the song. This performance was not included on the DVD. In 1996 Geldof recorded a self-mocking cover version of the song with

Dustin The Turkey
which reached number one in Ireland.

Personnel

References

  1. ^ "Boomtown Rats singles".
  2. ^ a b c d e "Boomtown Rats, The - Rat Trap (Vinyl) at Discogs". Discogs.com. 1978. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  3. ISBN 978-0-571-28198-5
    .
  4. ISBN 1852279478
    .
  5. ISBN 1-904994-10-5
    .
  6. ^ "Bob Geldof". bobgeldof.com. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  7. ISBN 1905287151
    .
  8. ISBN 0-330-44292-9
    .
  9. ^ "Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap [totp2]". YouTube. BBC. 1:15 minutes in. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
  10. ^ "Mr Alan Holmes". musicteachers.co.uk. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
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