On Modest Mouse’s“I Came as a Rat” From spacetravelisboring.geocities.com, a Modest Mouse fan site.
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One of my fave mm songs off this album. When he says ‘takes a long time but god dies too’ it’s like isaac is saying people need to stop thinking about whats right in front of them all the time and living in the here and now. Even god whose supposed to be the be all end all of creation, even he dies, it just takes a really long time. There’s a lot of talk of infinity within mm’s lyrics, esp like the song neverending math equation, and back on TM&A, 3rd planet, where he says ‘well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth if you go straight long enough you end up where you were’. It might take infinity years (so to speak) but even god will eventually die. issac is funny b/c he knows humans cant grasp the concept of infinity but he’s smart enough to play with his listeners’s minds and sort of play with them.
posted by lifelikeweeds on 12-21-2002 @ 05:47:26 AM
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The presence of God w/in a person vs. the alienation of human beings among each other on their own planet is a great juxtaposition, that supreme connection contrasted with the lack of regular everyday human interaction/connection. Imagine living on the moon or antarctica, the moon is in heaven (God) and Antarctica is on earth (humans). Either way, it’s a totally lonely existence if you live metaphorically or literally in either of those areas.
posted by basketcase on 12-23-2002 @ 08:14:19 PM
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I’ve heard that Issac is an atheist...anyone?
posted by moderncomplx on 12-29-2002 @ 05:37:02 PM
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I never liked this song that much, its OK but the jammy part at the end kills it by going on too long, and wastes time before getting to the best track “Lives”. I usu. skip it. “My mom God is a woman and my mom she is a witch” great lyric even if its depressing.
posted by CowboyDan on 02-07-2003 @ 11:53:12 AM
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What makes this album so great is all the religion and existentialism in the lyrics, Brock & co. have obviously been reading their Sartre! I wont list a ton of examples from the album because if you know anything about existentialism (the notion that when your alive you have to make the best of it because theres no afterlife or “Greater Meaning” to anything) their super easy to pick out. My favorite though is on Dark Center of the Universe when he says “God said something but he didn’t mean it everyone’s life ends but no one ever completes it. Dry or wet ice they both melt and your equally cheated” It’s pretty bleack at first blush but really its beautiful (using ice as a symbol is perfect as its cold and bleack and full of ice in antartica (part of the album title, obviously), and most people think its nothing but depressing and lonely there, but if you’ve ever seen a real glacier its one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things you’ll see in the world). So another tennent of existentialism is learning to see the beauty in life, since its all we have. Alot of people, even true fans, see this is a depressing and Nihilistic record but I think in reality Isaac just is making fun of people who are religious or believe in “God”. I think he mentions God in pretty much every song on this album, either explicitly or implicitly, making the point that if your so worried about what God thinks you miss out on whats really important, whats here physically. Of course from MM this criticism comes out in a funny, sarcastic way. Isaac Brock’s lyrics always totally kick ass.
posted by Raptr1943 on 03-17-2003 @ 03:18:27 AM
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Isaac Brock is a corporate crack-shooting whore who shoudl eat shit for selling out and singing to Epic which is owned by Sony, one of the most cocksucking capitalist dick corporations in the world. Modest Mouse use to be one of my favorite bands, it’s sad that corporate america could even get to them, who i thought were such “true artists”.
posted by robotheart on 03-19-2003 @ 12:05:14 AM
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Agreed, Dan. Great lyrics throughout. One of my top three albums of all times. Beats Lonesome Crowded and Long Drive any day. Can’t wait for the next disc, bet it’s def. going to be incredible to.
posted by man_in_white_suit on 03-25-2003 @ 06:24:01 PM
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I love the great playful drumbeat/weird guitars coupled against the existential lyrics. Modest mouse is one of those great pop bands whose songs are totally catchy but the lyrics are dark and have meaning to them. At the same time you could be driving in your car down PCH and scream out the poppy chorus, “Oh-oh, oooh, oh-oh, ooooh, oh-oh, ooooh, oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh” thinking how good life is and the next minute you’re thinking about being reincarnated as dirt. Scary. Awesome and crazy. Anyone have any take on what the “bad inventions” IB talks about at the end of the intro? Could be a symbol of humans themselves, we are all God’s “bad inventions” maybe?
posted by TheRecycler on 05-17-2003 @ 10:19:09 AM
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Raptr1943, first off if you’re going to insult someone you should use spell check because in the end you come off looking like the unintelligent one. Second have you ever been in a band? It’s nice and good to claim that you would never sell out until you have a wife and a few kids to support. Music is art and for Modest Mouse it’s also a living. The more money they make the more chance there is that they will come out with another album instead of waiting tables somwhere and anyway if you look past what label the record is on it doesn’t change the fact that it’s widely agreed that this is there best album yet. I could only dream that my band could create a piece of art even a quarter as amazing as Moon & Antartica, or write one song as great as any one song on it, especially Came as a Rat or Alone Down There, and if you ask me if I’d sign a contract with Epic or any of the other bigger labels I’d say yes I would in a second, and I’m not ashamed of it as it doesn’t make me a sellout by a long shot. I don’t want to call myself an “artist” necessarily and sound pretentious but yes I’m a musician and also, yes, I have kids and a mortgage. The sort of sentiment you’re voicing is, to be honest, sort of immature, ignorant, and comes from someone, I’m guessing, who’s pretty wrapped up in HIMSELF, someone who hasn’t had the experience of true love or childbirth to show them that wow, maybe there are other things more important in live than me me me. Anyway don’t be so quick to criticize somoene when you’ve never been in their own shoes, that’s all.
posted by madd_dogg on 07-12-2003 @ 07:39:35 PM
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Theres a lot of incorrect interpretations on this thread, which I’ll try to clear up some of here. First off, t he song is pretty obviously, as man_in_white_suit mentioned, about reincarnation. “I came as a rat...I came as a whore...I came as ice...dirt...flowers....” etc. It’s true that Brock plays with the notion of the infinite vs. the finite, eg reincarnation seems to be a viscious cycle that never ends, but he also says that even God dies. Infinity, while “invented” or at least discovered, conceptually, by humans around 400BC (I highly recommend David Foster Wallace’s book “Everything and Nothing: A Compact History of Infinity” for anyone who’s a fan of Modest Mouse and akin to the themes that Brock discusses herein), is not a concept that the human mind is capable of grasping fully. Think of the huggest room ever. There are no walls, no floor, no ceiling. Where does that room end? How “big” is it? This is impossible for us to understand as we exist in the realm of the physical and use quantitative methods to describe everything. Cheryl is 5 feet 7 inches tall. That glass of water is half empty. etc. We can think about infinity, we can talk about it as a concept, we can even understand what it MEANS per se, but we cannot truly grasp its implications. CowboyDan, you might want to brush up on your Philosophy 101, specifically the existentialism chapter. While there is a good amount of existentialism on this record (Life Like Weeds, 3rd Planet, et al), I’m not sure your examples are spot on. An existentialist would be hard pressed to be awe-inspired by nature, for example. Also, hate to be a pedantic but it’s “bleak” not “bleack.” Anyway, I’ll keep this short, the whole connection with god vs. connection with other humans is interesting but I think this song is more of an individual statement about Brock as an individual. Through intellectualism and self-knowledge he rises above the ostensible constructs of a finite and maybe even infinite existence, eg breaking bottles and walking around on them in his bare feet, knowing it doesn’t matter, his physical body is temporal, pain is a human construct, etc., declaring he doesn’t need anyone else to define him (“I do not need you to tell me that I’m not a cat”), and almost using reincarnation to his own advantage as a tool, coming back as whatever he wants, whenever he wants, then coming back as something else if that doesn’t work. “I came too soon so I cam back.” Who’s really in control here? The answer is obvious.
posted by swiss_apples on 07-28-2003 @ 12:52:22 AM
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Hey all! just want to say this is one of my favorite songs by “The Mouse” as well, I think it’s a great unique image when the singer says “Caught a ride we caught some air, he’s never gonna cut his hair” this is an image of death, i think, catching some air or catching a ride meaning going up to heaven, and then the symbol of when you die your fingernails and your hairs keep growing even when you die, which is what the second part of the lyric means. Brilliant! I also love the next part “It takes more time to make a fake” when hte singer means people put so much time and effort into lying and being fake and putting forth a fake image of themself to impress people when it would be so much easier for everyone if they were just more honest to people. OK That’s all! Thanx for listening!
posted by The_Tourist on 08-01-2003 @ 04:47:13 AM
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That lyric always makes me laugh, “I came too soon so I came back,” b/c of the sexual implications of “coming too soon.”
posted by mynameisjonas on 09-21-2003 @ 10:16:43 PM
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Sorry just not one of my favorite modest mouse songs by far
posted by CowboyDan on 09-25-2003 @ 07:51:01 PM
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The_Tourist, are you joking?
posted by xHolden_Caulfieldx on 10-24-2003 @ 01:37:46 AM
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Not sure about the individualism idea, Madddogg, esp. since in the beginning of the song the vocals are double-tracked, and even though both tracks are Isaac’s voice, it still hints at a strong human interaction, since there are sung as different styles. Similarly, the chorus sounds like there are at least two vocal tracks, maybe more, and the echoy effects really open it up so that it soudns like a real Greek Chorus, in the literal historical sense of the word. Sonically, this is one of the best most innovative songs on the album. The backwards parts before the chorus are recorded backwards, which adds to the element of infinity, which alot of people have talked about already, there’s alot of odd sounds especially in the “jammy part” and what sounds like a rocket taking off, it really creates a “physical soundscape” if that makes sense. It sounds like outer space in a way (another vast empire, a great human manifestation of “the infinite”). I also love the way the song is divided, sonically, between him singing alone, the song is pretty simple with just a few tracks, then like I said the chorus really opens it up. Great sonic juxtaposition. Kudos to Brian Deck on this one! (produced the album).
posted by audiorelapse on 11-17-2003 @ 09:51:07 PM
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If you listen to songs like Life of Arctic sounds it’s pretty clear Issac is an existentialism.