Singer songwriter Suzanne Vega has shared her first new song in 8 years. The new track was released as New York City was preparing to kick off its first annual Urban Rat Summit. Her songs have often been inspired by NYC, and “Rats” is an ode of sorts to the city’s infamous rodent infestation. The summit is to “focus on a framework for urban rat mitigation challenges, encompassing parks, sewers, construction sites, public housing, yards and alleys, and trash containerization.”
Musically she took inspiration from the groups Fontaines D.C. and Ramones. And somehow, this all works.
“I was talking to Jimmy Hogarth, the producer of my 2007 album Beauty And Crime,” Vega said in a press release. “We were discussing who had seen the biggest rat. After that conversation, I kept reading about or hearing various rat stories, all of them true. I took careful note and set it all to music, inspired by the Ramones and Fontaines D.C.”
The song arrives with an animated music video by Martha Colburn. Watch below.
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