This song is about the Hip. It's a retrospective of their formative years. Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker played with a band called the Rodents before joining with Johnny Fay and Gord Downie, hence the reference to rats and exterminators. The constant touring and harsh travel conditions (and years of crappy gigs) forged the band into a family.
The song is complementary to another song on World Container -The Kids Don't Get It - which shares a lot of the same imagery and expands on the theme of dedication and hard work being the basis of the Hip's metamorphosis into Canadian icons.
This song is about the Hip. It's a retrospective of their formative years. Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker played with a band called the Rodents before joining with Johnny Fay and Gord Downie, hence the reference to rats and exterminators. The constant touring and harsh travel conditions (and years of crappy gigs) forged the band into a family. The song is complementary to another song on World Container -The Kids Don't Get It - which shares a lot of the same imagery and expands on the theme of dedication and hard work being the basis of the Hip's metamorphosis into Canadian icons.