Overall language of the lyric uses criminal slang with striking imagery to tell a story. One reading of the story is that the narrator is a criminal who is in deep denial about the consequences of his actions. Another level of meaning could be about art itself. And yet I think there is a deeper meaning about life, the universe and god, a deity that Isaac Brock calls into question, angrily, in this song (as well as others).
* We spun like birds on fire right down towards the residence and I
I took all that I desired, even crooks have to pay the rent
We swam like rats on fire right, right down the reservoir
We took all that we could carry but we tried to carry more *
Others have pointed out that birds like to steal shiny objects. Birds are also slang for women, and later words like “rag doll” and “open like an organ” seem to tie into the vulnerability of a woman. To flip one the bird is to give one the finger and so there is an element in “bird” of that attitude of “not caring”. “Spun like birds on fire” is a strong image of disaster, telling us right from the start that this song is about a disaster. Birds in an oil spill sometimes are on fire, spinning shows they are out of control. Fire is also slang for coke or really good drugs and also means fast.
Fire is only repeated in the first stanza. The rats are also on fire. Fire is a symbol of desire also… the birds and the rats both being on fire could mean they were high, they were quick, or they were visual (like others interpretations have suggested) or it could mean they were full of desire.
Rats can be criminals and they can be also those who inform on others. Like the birds, the rats seem to involve the criminal nature of the participants, but also they are natural creatures. They are small vulnerable creatures and they are full of desire. They are doing what comes naturally.
“Even crooks have to pay the rent” is saying, well it’s natural to steal as one has needs”. Later on in the song that phrase is turned on itself to mean something a bit different, that there are consequences of those actions. But at first it is just natural that the crooks would steal. That is how they are.
“I took all I desired” and “we took all that we could carry” show that there is gang of thieves involved and the residence was the target. Some of the language appears literal. Taking residence (as the target for the theft) makes one visualize a literal reservoir used to escape from the scene of the crime. The image is of a descent on the target, followed by loading up, and then trying to load up some more before the escape.
The reservoir can be a hoard or a storage place too. They are on fire, but the reservoir will be safety. Yet later, the “deep water” turns out to be denial…. There is no safety.
As for Reservoir – there are a lot of cultural references in Brock’s lyrics and this may also be a reference to the film “Reservoir Dogs” which is about a botched diamond heist. Like Reservoir Dogs, Brock’s storytelling is NOT linear. “Birds on fire” could even be a sly reference to the film “City of Fire” that “Reservoir Dogs” was accused of ripping off. The story of a crime and the “rats” who rat on each other could also echo the story of cultural ripoffs in the creative world.
Taking all they can carry, “but we tried to carry more” is not only a reference to greed, but a reference to carrying even more crime and guilt, or biting off more than you can chew. If the crooks are the artists, they will fail in making art because they don’t know what they are doing.
But if the criminals are seen as human beings, full of natural desire, the residence could be earth itself. The reservoir could be the oceans, or it could just be all the sources of energy in the world. We took on more than we could carry, “but we tried to carry more”. We pushed all the natural resources past their limits.
And you know you know you know it all went wrong
And you know you know you know it was all wrong
“You know it all went wrong” is the regret that the plan didn’t work. It all was wrong could be conscience or it could mean that it was just a wrong plan. Not necessarily that it was wrong because it was a crime, but more that it was wrong because they bit off more than they could chew.
In art, the theft could never really be right because it would never achieve the status of real art. It would always be "fake", less than; so it would be wrong.
And if the residence is earth and we are the criminals, then it went wrong because we have global warming and all kinds of poison in our environments and it was wrong to try to “carry more than we could carry.”
* We choked on street tap water well I'm gonna have to try the real thing
I took your laugh by the collar and it knew not to swing
Anytime I tried an honest job well the till had a hole and ha-ha
We laughed about payin' rent 'cause the county jails they're free
And you know you know you know it all went wrong
And you know you know you know it was all wrong *
This seems like a flashback explanation of what lead up to the heist for the criminals or it could be the next scene in the story. “The street” is residence of the criminal. The real thing is the good stuff.
If this is carried into the meaning of “art” well, then the stealing of the cultural ideas could be “street tap water” but real art is the “real thing”. But if it is the human condition on earth, it means we are always wanting better than we have. In fact, we want to be gods ourselves.
“Took your laugh by the collar” shows a conflict between someone who thinks they are being laughed at, and another person or maybe even all of society, but the other person or society at large backs down from the confrontation. “Your laugh” “knew not to swing”. You knew better than to fight me. If it was an artistic theft, then the overall attitude of the artist kept society from realizing it was a theft. Whether it was artistic crime or overall crime, the criminal learns they do not have to pay because they keep the consequences away from themselves with their attitude.
When looking at the human condition, this may be the first line Brock addresses to God. “Your laugh by the collar” means that the human already guesses the whole thing is a joke and tries to address it directly, but “it knew not to swing”. In other words, it doesn’t swing back, so the human doesn’t yet realize the universe is a setup and keeps on going, again, no real consequences are happening from the human actions, even though there is a sense that something is off kilter.
The narrator cannot work an honest job. The allure of theft is that it begins to seem the only way. And artistically that could mean once you start ripping off other artists you will never really be a real artist.
The crime becomes unavoidable. But from the point of view of the human, every time we try to get more out of the earth, they are going to have to basically pollute or misuse resources to get what we want. Again the consequences are unavoidable.
Basically, “paying the rent” could mean “going to jail” when you are a criminal. This ties “paying the rent” into the inevitable consequences of one’s actions. But the criminals are laughing about it, which leads to the denial of the consequences. Like petty criminals, we humans continue to deny the possibilities of what are actions are going to lead to.
* Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I went down like a rag doll as you would, child
Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I went down like a rag doll as you would, child *
Deep water is the reservoir. Either it’s the swag from the heist – the reservoir or well of resources - or it’s the denial, itself, the feeling of being safe. In essence that is the payoff of the crime from the very beginning. The inevitable consequences are the real payoff – not the swag.
If you put a rag doll in water, it quickly becomes water logged and sinks; that image is striking. Rag doll also provides a sense of vulnerability. There is a feeling that the outcome was inevitable and anyone would be felled by the same sense of circumstances. Once you deny the possible consequences, you are sunk. If this is the criminal speaking, he is noticing his denial of the trouble he was in led to his sinking, but he is also disavowing responsibility, saying this was inevitable and it would’ve happened to anyone.
The human is sometimes seen as the child of God, but in Brock’s work we become more like a throw away play thing.
* Oh, lucky lucky lucky lucky me again
I said it looks like I've got to use my feet again
Well I just spent my last one-hundred dollars
God I'll pay my bill again *
The criminal speaking is feeling that this was inevitable and uses sarcasm to outline that fact. “Lucky me” He’s been in this position before and he knows what will happen. “Using my feet” he has to jet, he has to escape again, he has to run. Or he has to work to get out of the trap.
But he’s out of money and in truth out of luck. So he has to “pay my bill” – even crooks have to pay the rent means now that there are consequences. Now he has to face the consequences, the irony being that he knew all along that this would happen.
So here are we humans realizing we are running out of natural resources and we have to think on our feet and come up with solutions.
* Oh, I don't care
Oh, how I just don't care *
This line is sung with a lot of bitterness and passion. It’s not so much that he doesn’t care; it’s more like he feels that his fate is inevitable and it is dragging him down like the water in the chorus weighs down the “rag doll”.
And the humans often seem to not care. We stay in denial about the situation on our planet and we don’t’ really do anything about it.
* Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I went down like a rag doll shooken and shy
Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I went down like a rag doll rat of a child *
The chorus changes. “Shooken and shy” and “rag doll rat of a child” give us an image of a toy as it is shaken by a terrier, which were also known to hunt rats. Maybe the “reservoir” or loot was being guarded and there was a stake out… Now the “senseless denial” has gotten the narrator into a situation of being defeated, but not just saying “you would do it too” now the line is reminiscent of a beating.
In another sense, the toy rag doll, or the small vulnerable natural creature known as Man, has been cruelly used by God who allowed the whole situation to get out of hand. By not answering our challenges and letting us know we couldn’t get away with our hubris, God is as much responsible for this problem as humans are. We were just doing what was natural to us, by “carrying more than we could carry”.
* Well king rat has me on his list again
I can never be on the fence again
I found out it's all loud
Open like an organ and it
talk, talk, talk, talk again
he promised me that when I cheated him
But I could open my eye well...
lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky,
lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky me again *
In the criminal story line, king rat could be the crime boss. Some have said society itself. Or it could be that after being “shooken” or beaten, the criminal himself is going to be the “rat of rats”, the criminal who rats on his compatriots.
But most likely “king rat” could be basically God himself. And now we are on his list for the consequences of our actions. We are being punished.
For the criminal, “I can never be on the fence again”… might mean I can never unload these goods. Or now that he’s “on the list” he can’t pretend to be legit or get a steady job while waiting for the money from the big heist. Or if he is an artist, realizing that all art is theft, he can’t really do it anymore. He has to stop using his art as a lie.
But for the human it means we can never trust God again. We got set up and punished again, and we can never be on the fence about god or the nature of the universe. We know now.
“It’s all loud” everything is known. Truth will out. All the evidence of a crime is there and it speaks for itself. Also, you cannot hide anything in true art.
And in the human condition in the end speaks for itself. We were set up.
“Open like an organ” – what is an organ? Usually we use organ for the male member, but it doesn’t open… a mouth is an organ that opens and so is a vulva. This line is about vulnerability, but then “it talks, talks, talks”… so everything speaks the truth in the end. That is the consequences.
Maybe in the criminal as he is ratting on his gang, he knows once he talks, he is just going to keep talking. Or the evidence of the crime just speaks louder than words and the entire crime is out in the open.
In the human condition, the earth opens up and speaks and tells the tale of what we have done
“He promised me that when I cheated him” refers back to king rat. The criminal is basically screwed. And that is what he was promised when he “cheated him”, that he would be screwed.
God has the universe sewed up. Everything you do has consequences and the whole universe speaks to this. You cannot cheat “God” (the king rat) or fate. But God had promised us that, that our human condition was “original sin” and that it would come back to haunt us. When we tried to take all we desired and more, we were promised that it would come back to us.
“But I could open my eye well” – the criminal pretty much knew this would happen all along from the minute he got involved in the overall plot. The eye is also an organ, and it could’ve talked to him all along, and in the end it did. It told him the truth; he opened it and finally looked, out of denial.
“Lucky me” is him being sarcastic about his inevitable fate. To be human is essentially to be unlucky. The luck of the human has been to be able to finally learn the lesson of our inevitable condition – like natural creatures we took what we desired, by so doing we have “sunk like the rag doll” and we have to “use our feet again”.
* Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I got fed like a fish, full of open smiles
Deep water, deep water
Senseless denial
I got fed like a fish on the cardboard smiles *
The final chorus changes his story again. First chorus he is defensive saying: you would’ve gone down too. The second chorus he is “shaken and shy”, and maybe he was just beaten into submission. But in the final chorus he admits to being “fed like a fish”. A fish is a mark, someone who is conned.
The open smiles could be what he was fed. But it could also me he was also “full of open smiles” himself. Fish wanted to be fed cluster about with their mouths wide open ready to swallow the bait. He was open to being conned. The deep water of denial, the lure of the heist was the bait that drew the criminal in.
The “cardboard” smiles were that the smiles were “open” but they were fake. Open is like the “organ”, it seemed like they all were vulnerable together, but they were not. The others’ vulnerability was false.
The open smiles that the fish were fed were the truth, the truth that talks, talks, talks again, like the “organ” in the earlier verse. The lie contains the truth. The truth contains the lie. Again the human is a creature, this time a fish rather than a bird or a rate, one that has swallowed false truths.
The fish had to get feet to leave the ocean, and now we have to grow feet to evolve out of the human situation.
* Well Well...
What do you have to say for yourself?
I said, well well
Well?
I said well, well, well, well!
Well opened the song and “well” is mostly a word we use as punctuation in conversation. The “well” also seems like a pun on “reservoir” and “deep water” both being used as a symbol of the false safety, the idea that “all is well”. By answering the interrogation “what do you have to say for yourself?” he is answering by invoking the whole scene, the story of the song. First we tried to get something, then we almost got away with it, then we realized that we were inevitably screwed. That’s basically what he is saying for himself. It was a setup and there isn’t much you can say about it.
Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky me again.
I hardly knew I should use my feet again
What do you have to say for yourself?
What do you have to say for yourself?*
He underscores his “luck” or his humanity. “I hardly knew I should have to use my feet again” indicates the same passionate bitterness of “Oh I don’t care” and the denial of “as you would child”. How could I be expected to know that I would have to use my feet again. How could I realize that as a natural creature, the fish had to learn to have feet and walk on land, now I’m going to have to figure out how to escape the earth or the condition on earth that I created?
But since “I hardly knew” he turns the question back at the interrogator. Since the title of the song is “king rat” I think the final interrogation is from Brock, the human, to God.
What do *you* have to say for *yourself*, “King Rat” a.k.a. God, or whoever set up the rules of the universe which “you know you know you know it was all wrong”.
The universe is a setup. We should’ve seen what we were doing, but we couldn’t because our “crime” was inevitable. We tried to do good but we were not stopped from our crime and in the end we took it as a joke that we would have to pay consequences. Doing what has come naturally we have depleted our natural resources like criminals and denied our responsibility until the inevitable conclusion. We can’t say much for ourselves because the earth is opening up and speaking and saying it “all loud”.
In another way the question haunts us as humanity because we “could open” our “eye well” if we had chosen to. In another way, we ourselves are the “king rat”.
