I Think I Smell a Rat

From Stripespedia

Band Quotes

Jack White:"There's these punk kids who break windows and stuff like that - you know, make fun of me when I walk into the gas station. It's like, I've lived here my whole life, and he's 8 years old and talking to me like that. They'll bust your window, and then you go take them to their parents and their parents take their side. They get away with murder."

Jack White:"I love that song."

Jack White:"We wrote that the day before we left for Memphis. The phrase 'I think I smell a rat'--there was one day when I was home by myself and I played one chord on the piano, and I just kept saying that over and over, 'I think I smell a rat.' And I could never think of anything else to go with it. I loved it because I had this whole thing imagined--that it would go into this swinging finger-snapping thing after that--but I never finished writing it. We had this [other] song called "That's Where It's At" that we didn't put on the first album. The lyric was, "All you people know/Just where it's at now/walking down the street with a baseball bat now." It's about the kids in the neighborhood. We weren't going to use that song anymore, and I played that chord, and 'I smell a rat' popped out again. Meg played it with me and I started singing the lyrics from that other song about the kids in the neighborhood again, and we said, 'This is perfect.'"

Lyrics

Oh I think I smell a rat
I think I smell a rat
all you little kids
seem to think you know
just where it's at
I think I smell a rat
walking down the street
carrying a baseball bat
I think I smell a rat

Oh I think I smell a rat
I think I smell a rat
all you little kids
seem to think you know
just where is at
I think I smell a rat
treating your mother and father
like a welcome mat
I think I smell a rat