The Rat

"The Rat" is credited to the Walkmen and was produced by Dave Sardy. It was released as a single on April 19, 2004, with "Clementine" on the B-side; the length is 4:22 on the single, 4:27 on the album and 4:25 in MusicBrainz. Leithauser has said it began as a jam when the band was just screwin' around, with Barrick starting a fast drum pattern, and that he wrote the words in five minutes. Martin remembers it written at Marcata in about ten minutes, with a Joy Division-style beat. Ezra Koenig said it was first called "Girls at Night". It was live by February 2002 with different lyrics. Bauer calls it a bear to record, cut three times including once in Memphis before the label brought in Sardy, and credits Sardy with its success. Leithauser says he has no clear meaning in mind.

It reached 45 in the UK. The video is a black-and-white live clip directed by Eva Aridjis. Pitchfork ranked it sixth among the singles of 2004 and 20th of the 2000s, calling it a St. Valentine's Day Massacre of relentless drums, bass, and guitar; NME ranked it 13th of the decade. Setlist.fm lists it as the most played Walkmen song, 286 plays. It was second in the set after "They're Winning" at the first reunion show in Westerly, Rhode Island in April 2023, and the band played it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on April 18, 2023. Covers include Lonely the Brave (2017) and Melted Bodies (2020); Idles' Joe Talbot has called it his favorite song. We do not know whether our upload is the studio or another version.