"Return of the Rat" is a song by the punk rock band Wipers, and is the first track on Wipers' 1980 debut album Is This Real?. Like much of the album, the song structure is circularly tight and catchy, containing a driving drum beat and choppy, distorted guitar riffs.
The song (and the band) grew in popularity after the grunge band Nirvana recorded a cover of "Return of the Rat" for a 1992 Wipers tribute record entitled Eight Songs for Greg Sage and The Wipers on Tim Kerr records. A different mix of the same recording appeared on the 2004 Nirvana box set With the Lights Out. For the tribute, Nirvana initially intended to include a cover of Wipers' song "D-7" (which also appears on With the Lights Out), recorded in late 1990 for a BBC session. However, the song had already been released by their record label, Geffen Records on the Nirvana EP Hormoaning in 1992. The label did not allow the release of the song under a different record label, so Nirvana ultimately recorded "Return of the Rat" for the compilation. "D-7" was also later included in some versions of the "Lithium" single.
Famous quotes containing the words return of the, return of, return and/or rat:
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire from sight and afterwards return again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A rat eats, then leaves its droppings.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 85, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)