Rats in the Rafters is another great song title plucked from the catalog of weird hillbilly hits.

Strange love songs

Weird fiddle tunes

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Rats in the Rafters and more hillbilly hits

by Phil Houseal
Aug 4, 2010

I tried not to write about weird song titles again, but that magazine was just lying there, teasing me with its promise of 25 dulcimer tunes.

So I picked up Dulcimer Players magazine and turned to the table of contents. There it was - right on page 22 - a song title that could make Burt Bacharach blanche: Slicker Than a Pair of Moose Lips.

I’ll admit I’ve written some weird songs. Many referenced animals, some specifically animal parts, both attached and at a post-attachment stage. But I could live a thousand lifetimes before considering moose lips as suitable subjects for a song.

And just how slick are moose lips anyway?

Probably no moister than a Goose Eye, page 44. Nor slimier than My Cheatin' Parts, page 56.

Who comes up with these song titles? Is it any wonder we nurture stereotypes like the banjo-playing boy in Deliverance?

Life in the hills and hollers was hard, but it must also have been exceedingly boring. How else do you explain the motive for writing an opus entitled Annie Went Down To The Cabbage Patch? That’s a real song. One can imagine the songwriter succumbing to the seduction of fame and clamor of fans and following that success with a series of “Annie” songs, including Annie Picked the Cabbage, Annie Came Back From the Cabbage Patch, Annie Cleaned the Cabbage, and Annie Cooked the Cabbage. (I actually kind of like that one - Annie Cooked the Cabbage with some beans and home brew; The rush to the outhouse started an awful feud)

When he had wrung all inspiration possible out of the cabbage patch, that lonely songwriter had only to look over his other shoulder to come up with his next multi-aluminum hit: Sorghum Syrup.

But garden vegetables were a sore second in the pantheon of song-inspiring flora and fauna. Nothing moved a pondering poet to grab pen and paper faster than seeing a critter scurry under his shack. As on page 36: Woodpecker Chasing a Lizard. (Strangely, I don’t have a problem with that one.) Or on page 52: Rats in the Rafters.

There were no lyrics (for this or for any of these songs - I guess the artist’s literary inspiration ended with the song title), so I tried to come up with some of my own:

Nothing compares to the grease in your hair
Or to the bright yellow of your tooth

And I must confess that your gunny sack dress
Makes me want to force feed the goose

But when I hand you a hen and you wring its neck
I admit it’s the sound of your laughter

That sings me to sleep like the scurrying feet
Of the hungry Rats in the Rafters

Apparently there are some songwriters who shared my disdain for songs about vermin. A talented saint dispatched at least one species when he penned Devil Ate the Groundhog. No doubt he had to leave the village after that as he had used up all local sources of inspiration.

As I searched for other dulcimer song titles, I came up with a promising one called The Dulcimer Stomp. I envisioned rebel mountain musicians tossing dulcimers onto a pile and splintering them with their hobnail boots. Alas! The Dulcimer Stomp was a love song by Aerosmith, and included no reference to any shattered instruments.