This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mr. Howell: The dinner was fine until she opened her mouth.
Oh, Candy! Oh, Candy! Behind her teeth 15 rats started screaming and sobbing. Candy girl! Candy girl!
When we were kissing in the car
those rodents smoked cigars in her throat, blowing smoke.
(You turn on the lights and look a bit closer... there's shutters on her eyes, there's a door on her thigh.)
Candy: These rats are not living inside my hotel face.
They're just sick and they need a bed lined with fine lace.
Mr. Howell: You know that pity's got an ugly price tag.
Rats: Our fur feels like it's on fire. There's thorns growing on our bones.
Our hunger is x-rated.
Oh, mother, we love you so!
(Candy invites you upstairs, you say it's getting awfully late, but she yanks your hand through the door. Her clothes fall off and she presses into you. But those rats have chewed a hole straight through her navel and nipple.)
Mr. Howell: Oh, Candy. I've got to go.
Candy: Oh, won't you stay the night with me Mr. Howell!
These rats are not living inside my hotel face.
They're just sick and need a bed lined with fine lace.
Mr. Howell: You know that pity's got an ugly price tag. [x2]
Rats: Our muscles have turned to cement.
We're coughing up needles and nails.
Our veins are flowing barbed wire.
Oh, mother, we are so frail! but wait!
We've got a trick for him.
We twist tears into shit eaten grins.
(When you wake up in the morning you find yourself alone in Candy's bed. And everything is gone: paintings, jewels, songs. Candy's blowing in the breeze; those rats devoured her up in her sleep. Her skin's tied to the bed post like a flag on a ship of ghosts. You read the letter on the dresser; the sick brown sun rubbing in your soul).
Reading letter: Oh, mother, you should have known.
You should have seen through our fake broken bones.
Our tears that we razor-sharpened were calculated to rob you blind.
Mr. Howell: Three weeks later from that day,
I saw those rats on a bicycle.
They crept by me and started balling,
their eyes turned to icicles.
Crying, "We need a vacancy!"
Oh, Candy! Oh, Candy! Behind her teeth 15 rats started screaming and sobbing. Candy girl! Candy girl!
When we were kissing in the car
those rodents smoked cigars in her throat, blowing smoke.
(You turn on the lights and look a bit closer... there's shutters on her eyes, there's a door on her thigh.)
Candy: These rats are not living inside my hotel face.
They're just sick and they need a bed lined with fine lace.
Mr. Howell: You know that pity's got an ugly price tag.
Rats: Our fur feels like it's on fire. There's thorns growing on our bones.
Our hunger is x-rated.
Oh, mother, we love you so!
(Candy invites you upstairs, you say it's getting awfully late, but she yanks your hand through the door. Her clothes fall off and she presses into you. But those rats have chewed a hole straight through her navel and nipple.)
Mr. Howell: Oh, Candy. I've got to go.
Candy: Oh, won't you stay the night with me Mr. Howell!
These rats are not living inside my hotel face.
They're just sick and need a bed lined with fine lace.
Mr. Howell: You know that pity's got an ugly price tag. [x2]
Rats: Our muscles have turned to cement.
We're coughing up needles and nails.
Our veins are flowing barbed wire.
Oh, mother, we are so frail! but wait!
We've got a trick for him.
We twist tears into shit eaten grins.
(When you wake up in the morning you find yourself alone in Candy's bed. And everything is gone: paintings, jewels, songs. Candy's blowing in the breeze; those rats devoured her up in her sleep. Her skin's tied to the bed post like a flag on a ship of ghosts. You read the letter on the dresser; the sick brown sun rubbing in your soul).
Reading letter: Oh, mother, you should have known.
You should have seen through our fake broken bones.
Our tears that we razor-sharpened were calculated to rob you blind.
Mr. Howell: Three weeks later from that day,
I saw those rats on a bicycle.
They crept by me and started balling,
their eyes turned to icicles.
Crying, "We need a vacancy!"
Lyrics submitted by decodethemoans
Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy Lyrics as written by John Whitney Cody Votolato
Lyrics © MOTHERSHIP MUSIC PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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If I may suggest a radical yet logical point of view?
I think that most of you guys are right by saying the rats are symbolism for something bad but I have a different point of view.
I think the rats are desire/bad intentions as a whole and the whining by them and their illnesses ("Our muscles have turned into cement", "Veins are flowing barbed wire" etc) are almost reminders of the ugliness of the desire and when it turns bad. I think that the song's intent was to make the Candy character look like the cause of all this yet the rats remain at the end of the song. To me, this means that the desire and bad intentions of this "Mr. Howell" keep corrupting the willing and follow him over and over again. Like in the opening lines it seems that Mr. Howell was alright until he noticed something in Candy that brought out the "rats behind her teeth" that started "screaming and sobbing", or perhaps a desire for her. When he wakes up in the morning, all the desires/bad intent (the rats) are gone for one reason or another and he can move on again.
This is what I think. Feel free to criticize.