Might as well add some notes from my draft HOUSING SONGBOOK:

The Rats


        What can be said about the rats? Some cite statistics:

The Health Dept. estimates that there are 250,000 Norway rats in New York. This figure is called "naively conservative" by other experts, who say there are between 1,000,000 and 8,000,000 rats living alongside, under and on top of the city's underprivileged.

Others relate horror stories:

Yesterday a twelve month old baby died from a rat bite. The mother picked him up to feed him and the child's eye had been bitten out and he was dead. The landlord justified it by saying, "Well, they don't pick up their garbage. Anyway, it was a nigger baby and they have a new one every year. So, what does it matter?"

Years later, some former ghetto residents would still wake up in a cold sweat:

Listen, I've had rats falling in my bathtub. I had to go and buy four big rat traps and I've caught as high as nine big rats. Not mice, rats. Rats that cats would be afraid to tackle. We had to nail down the traps so the rats wouldn't take them away. And they were pulling and pulling, and I found them when they strangled themselves to death. I saved some to show the landlord when he came in. I had the exterminator, but he didn't do nothing...Every night you hear the rats fighting.

        Well known singer-songwriter Tom Paxton wrote this song, originally published in Broadside back in 1964. No doubt he was inspired by the massive New York City rent strikes of the previous year, led by Harlem tenants' organizer Jesse Gray, which among other things persuaded the mayor's office to initiate a million dollar rat extermination program.

Words and music by Tom Paxton
© Deep Fork Music

The Rats


We have always been taught to be humble and meek,
And give thanks for a roof above our heads;
We are grateful but please
Tell me who do you thank
For the rats that run under our beds.

Chorus:

And the rats how they run through the walls of our slum
And no fear of man do they show;
With our children we hold dear
We are prisoners of fear,
And the rats come and go, come and go.

The inspectors they come, swearing justice for all,
And they write up citations by the score;
But their breath must be short,
For they never reach court,
And they never come around here anymore. (CHO)

Politicians they walk through our streets, and they talk,
Thinking thoughts that are pure as driven snow;
As they puff and they blow,
Just like someone we know,
Politicians come and go, come and go. (CHO)

The landlords they scream at our Communist scheme,
For we all are with-holding our dough;
They can scream for all time,
But they won't get a dime,
Till the rats up and go, up and go. (CHO)


Warm regards,
Landlady's Daughter, not to be confused with Charley Noble