When you really love an artist, you pay them the most respect by listening to all their albums. This day and age, its very hard to find such artists. I'm so happy to have found an artist that I could apply this ideal to.
This song was the first to really catch my attention after listening to "Keep Yourself Alive", and "Doing All Right". Those were great, relatable with enduring of life, but for the year it was released, 1973, this was a time period where everyone believed in a religion, and he's boldly questioning it.
this is all just speculation
Its starts off with some tale, "The Great King Rat", like a fairy tale we heard as children. Though he has the title of king and has the adjective Great, the tale speaks nothing but ill of him. Now, It sounds as if there is 2 people talking, one being a strong believer since he's preaching, and the other being the ignorant. Ignorant because of the line, "Show me", indicating the preacher is trying to convince someone. Considering they said he was always wanted by the law and always swearing, Its not far fetched to assume they're talking about someone viewed as a criminal. Mind you, there was no such thing as 'serial killers' till 1981, so people already had harsh views on criminals who'd committed lesser crimes. There was nothing but TV, so people would believe everything they heard. Now, I want to talk about the "rat". A rat is found highly disgusting by most likely carries diseases from living in filth. A squirrel is found very cute and nature friendly because its found by trees and sunshine, yet carries the same level of diseases. How different would you think of the first chorus if it began as Great King Squirrel instead of Rat. This use of irony in just the name indicates so much on how our society revolves around people's perceptions. For him to put this as his first song in bands first album shows how much hes buttering us up for more. All of these things still apply today.
You know what they say, the past is just the future with the lights on.
When you really love an artist, you pay them the most respect by listening to all their albums. This day and age, its very hard to find such artists. I'm so happy to have found an artist that I could apply this ideal to.
This song was the first to really catch my attention after listening to "Keep Yourself Alive", and "Doing All Right". Those were great, relatable with enduring of life, but for the year it was released, 1973, this was a time period where everyone believed in a religion, and he's boldly questioning it.
this is all just speculation
Its starts off with some tale, "The Great King Rat", like a fairy tale we heard as children. Though he has the title of king and has the adjective Great, the tale speaks nothing but ill of him. Now, It sounds as if there is 2 people talking, one being a strong believer since he's preaching, and the other being the ignorant. Ignorant because of the line, "Show me", indicating the preacher is trying to convince someone. Considering they said he was always wanted by the law and always swearing, Its not far fetched to assume they're talking about someone viewed as a criminal. Mind you, there was no such thing as 'serial killers' till 1981, so people already had harsh views on criminals who'd committed lesser crimes. There was nothing but TV, so people would believe everything they heard. Now, I want to talk about the "rat". A rat is found highly disgusting by most likely carries diseases from living in filth. A squirrel is found very cute and nature friendly because its found by trees and sunshine, yet carries the same level of diseases. How different would you think of the first chorus if it began as Great King Squirrel instead of Rat. This use of irony in just the name indicates so much on how our society revolves around people's perceptions. For him to put this as his first song in bands first album shows how much hes buttering us up for more. All of these things still apply today.
You know what they say, the past is just the future with the lights on.