Rat Trap Lyric Change

Silverbantam · Mary of the 4th Form

Rat Trap Lyric Change

suss · In the Long Grass

Censors obviously deemed sufficiently unpleasant for the radio audience, including children, of the time.

Not much dispute it wouldn't raise an eyebrow nowadays.

Current trend seems to be to drop the odd offensive word completely rather than replace with fresh recording. Listen carefully to half the chart stuff and you can spot unnatural gaps. There are still examples or word changes though, e.g. chick recorded over bitch in 'I love it' (Icona Pop).

Can't think offhand of whole phrases being changed like in Rat Trap though

Mark L · Loudmouth

No, I can't either really. The replacement of one word rerecorded, like You're Beautiful by James Blunt which replaces "f**king high" with "flying high" in the second verse is similar as is the Stones with 'Let's spend the night together' being changed to 'Let's spend some time together'.

ABC made Cole Porter change the lyric of "I Get A Kick Out Of You", which was a big hit for Frank Sinatra. Porter's original was 'I get no kick from cocaine'. The sanitised version was 'I get perfume from Spain'.

raticus · She's So Modern

My Rat Trap 45 has "no grime here paddy" etched into the plastic. Was it on all of them?

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

raticus wrote:
My Rat Trap 45 has "no grime here paddy" etched into the plastic. Was it on all of them?

Definitely on the first pressings. Both of my copies have no grime.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

suss wrote

Can't think offhand of whole phrases being changed like in Rat Trap though

There is the US version of Dave. It's a whole song of change.

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

It's a title change - Rain.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Jules wrote:
It's a title change - Rain.

And almost all of the lyrics.

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

Almost an entirely different song. It's lost its meaning.

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

Really dislike this song (Rain) even Charmed lives is better than this

suss · In the Long Grass

Rain doesn't count! smile

Any censored lines changed...like wot Mark said, although I thought line was 'from champagne' confuse

suss · In the Long Grass

Actually, I take that back about Rain. Fair enough it was a censorship of sorts.

suss · In the Long Grass

And guess champagne was FS version? I'm on a roll tonight. Talk about engage brain....

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

At the time the big wigs who through they new better in the suits did not like the wording I have both version's. But just like Rain/Dave it just doesn't wotk

col0362 · Lookin' After Number 1

Hi,

I know this is an old thread but hopefully some of you are still here to help!

I bought Rat Trap the day it was released.

My copy is on the green Ensign label and made in the UK.

It also has the same lyrics as the album version - no changes.

It has the message ' Run Hi Run Free' on the inner vinyl.

I have never heard of anyone else having this version. I even had to make my own entry on Discogs.

Anyone else out there have this version?

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

col0362 wrote:
I bought Rat Trap the day it was released.
My copy is on the green Ensign label and made in the UK.
It also has the same lyrics as the album version - no changes.
It has the message ' Run Hi Run Free' on the inner vinyl.
I have never heard of anyone else having this version. I even had to make my own entry on Discogs.
Anyone else out there have this version?

I don't know if I bought it on the day of release, but I did buy it more or less as it came out and I got the picture cover and the no grime version. I wonder how many of these "proper" verrsions were ever released.

Out of interest, where did you buy it and did it have the picture cover? I got my copy in HMV on Holloway Road London which would stock records in the 100s, I'm wondering if it was a more niche store that had this version. Could even be a demo.

Mike menzies · V Deep

I got mine a couple of days after release it was not picture cover but silver label

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

I think singles came out Thursday/Friday ahead of the weekend back then, except for Polydor which released on Monday to get a whole week's sales in and have their marquee acts (Slade & The Jam) enter straight at #1.

Interestingly the Rats appeared on ToTP before the single came out, which for a chart act with one top ten single prior to that is a bit of an achievement. Must have had a good plugger.

05/OCT/1978 Rat Trap (Top of the Pops appearance)

ENY16 Rat Trap/So Strange
14/Oct/1978 - Entered Charts
22-9-7-3-2-{1}-1-2-5-13-28-28-37-50-73

Mark L · Loudmouth

ArrGee wrote:
I think singles came out Thursday/Friday ahead of the weekend back then, except for Polydor which released on Monday to get a whole week's sales in and have their marquee acts (Slade & The Jam) enter straight at #1.

Interestingly the Rats appeared on ToTP before the single came out, which for a chart act with one top ten single prior to that is a bit of an achievement. Must have had a good plugger.

05/OCT/1978 Rat Trap (Top of the Pops appearance)

ENY16 Rat Trap/So Strange
14/Oct/1978 - Entered Charts
22-9-7-3-2-{1}-1-2-5-13-28-28-37-50-73

TOTP allowed this, more so in the early 70s, so the Rats benefitted from their efficient plugger. Well done Bob? I think they even had a slot called Tip for the Top.

The Rats were also shown quite often when outside the top 40 such as with SLAY and House on Fire. Curiously, however, the Elephants Graveyard was not aired for the two weeks it was inside the top 40, and couldn't be shown in week three of its chart life as it had slipped one place to 27.

I bought it in the week it went from 7 to 3. Silver label.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
I bought it in the week it went from 7 to 3. Silver label.

You have some memory! I have to confess that if I didn't buy a record on release, I would have little or no idea when I bought it in the midst of the chart run. More often than not I bought my singles when they hit the bargain bins in Woolworths.

I bought Like Clockwork at some point after it went into the charts, and the three previous singles after Rat Trap itself. I also bought A Tonic for the Troops sometime between the Rat Trap release and the single making #1. With Surfacing I had it about two or three weeks pre-release. I have the same for many of the LPs in that era thanks to a local independent record store that never bothered to leave anything in the back room. Of course this was a shrewd move to divert buyers away from the local Woolworths and the other record store which had a chart return terminal. They both had to wait to put the records on the shelves.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Not that good a memory, I just remember my mother taking me in half term to Woolworths in Wolverhampton, so figure it must have been that week. I'd certainly had it a couple of weeks before it hit the top.

Mondays was bought a week or two after it hit the top but it's journey to number one was not as leisurely as Rat Trap's.