After trying to find out what animals are rodents, I tried to find a song with one of the more unusual ones, including chinchillas and beavers. I learned that rap artists love to use chinchilla fur as a symbol of luxury. Beavers have a connotation that some might find objectionable so I skipped them. I finally found three really good songs with rat in them:
1) “You & Your Folks, Me & My Folks,” by Funkadelic from their 1971 album, Maggot Brain.
2) “Patterns” by Simon & Garfunkel, from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
I went with #3:
3) “Snakes and Ladders,” by Joni Mitchell from Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm.
I have posted about 2 other songs on the album, “My Secret Place,” a duet with Peter Gabriel; and “Cool Water,” a duet with Willie Nelson. “Snakes and Ladders” is a duet with Don Henley, which is a narrative about the trajectory of a relationship.
From wikipedia: Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm is the 13th studio album by Canadian singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell, released in 1988. It was her third for Geffen Records. Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female at the 1989 Grammy Awards…
Other favorite songs on “Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm” are My Secret Place, Dancin Clown, and Cool Water. Impressive are how many well-known singers back her up on it. Here’s a list:
“My Secret Place” Peter Gabriel
“Number One” Benjamin Orr
“Lakota” Iron Eyes Cody, Don Henley
“The Tea Leaf Prophesy” Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman (Wendy & Lisa)
“Dancin’ Clown” Billy Idol, Tom Petty, Manu Ketche, Julie Last, Larry Klein, Michael Landau
“Cool Water” Willie Nelson
“The Beat of Black Wings” Benjamin Orr
“Snakes and Ladders” was issued as a pre-release single to radio stations in January 1988. It was co-written with Larry Klein, with Joni writing lyrics and Klein co-writing music with her. Joni and Klein were married in November 1982 and divorced in 1994, so they were married at the time the album was made; the two co-produced it.
I remember playing the game, Snakes and Ladders, as a kid. Doing a little research I found the following:
Snakes and Ladders is a board game for two or more players regarded today as a worldwide classic. The game originated in ancient India as Moksha Patam, and was brought to the United Kingdom in the 1890s. It is played on a game board with numbered, gridded squares. A number of “ladders” and “snakes” are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate one’s game piece, according to die rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped by climbing ladders but hindered by falling down snakes.
The game is a simple race based on sheer luck, and it is popular with young children. The historic version had its roots in morality lessons, on which a player’s progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes.)
I like how Joni likens relationships to a game and how the above description can apply as a metaphor for relationships.
Personnel on just this song:
Joni – keyboards and drum programming
Larry Klein – bass and keyboards
Michael Landau – guitar
Don Henley – background vocals
Snakes and Ladders
He
In a shopping mall
Finally met the perfect girl
She is all that matters
The only one in all the world
Like a Barbie doll
Oh love is snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
She
Just to have and hold
Is the perfect air-brushed angel
Makes you hot just looking at her
Stapled into all his braincells
Like a centerfold
Oh love is snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Buy the townhouse
Call the preacher
Get to the bottom climb back up
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Set up credit for the lovely creature
The lovely creature
He
On a corporate climb
Set his sights on power for her
On a silver platter
He gave up happy hour for her
Perrier and lime
Oh love is snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
She
In a handsome world
Put her mind to social graces
All the privileged chatter
Setting pretty table places
For the girls in pearls
Oh love is snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Buy the carphone
Call the broker
Get to the bottom climb back up
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Buy the wife a diamond choker
A diamond choker
True love true love true love
He's so nervous
New love new love new love
When he's with her
Oh he's wasting away
True love true love true love
It's so curious
New love new love new love
Just to kiss her
To kiss her to kiss her to kiss her
To kiss her to kiss her to kiss her
To kiss her he has to shave
She
In the gilded mirrors
In the swing of fancy places
Where the black ties flatter
Started seeing other faces
Young fogie financiers
Oh love is snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
See
In the crimes of time
How the seasons steal away
How the rungs are shattered
First you're green then you're grey
Still the snakes unwind
Still playin' snakes and ladders
Snakes and ladders
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Sell the vineyard
Call the lawyer
Get to the bottom climb back up
Get to the top and slide back down
Get to the bottom climb back up
Gather garbage to destroy her
To destroy her
Ladders ladders ladders
The perfect girl
Ladders ladders ladders
The paper chase Love is snakes and ladders
Ladders ladders ladders
The social whirl
Ladders ladders
The rat race
Barbie doll
© 1988; Crazy Crow Music
Jim Adams is the host of Song Lyric Sunday. This week Jim wants us to look for tunes about rodents suggested by Clive of Take It Easy.
Tao Talk 
Hi Lisa hope you had a good Christmas ♥️ thank for picking this track I had forgotten all about it it is a brilliant metaphor for the turbulent game of love 🥰 Wishing you a beautiful and blessed new year 💕
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Ange, glad you know it and yes it is. Wishing you the same <3
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🙏
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A new one on me. I guess this game is where we got Shutes and Ladders?
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V, yes it is. I had no idea it originated in India, but it would explain the snakes.
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I always learn something from your blogs Li, enjoyed this.
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Paul, thanks and glad you enjoyed the post/song. This album seems to get less notice than her earlier stuff and happy to promote it.
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Nice choice, Lisa as it is always good to hear Joni singing. It is kind of odd to think that Barbie who is supposed to be the perfect girl would have trouble finding love, but I guess that everyone gets caught up in the rat race.
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Thanks, Jim, and thanks to Clive for his prompt suggestion. I think for Barbie it is even more difficult, as she never knows if it’s the shell they love or the person inside. Yet again, maybe the person inside doesn’t exist anymore?
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Great choice! I love this album, and just about everything she has done.
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Thanks, Clive. I still haven’t listened to her discography completely, but I have yet to hear anything I didn’t like. She’s one of the greats isn’t she.
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I tend to prefer her earlier albums before the jazz influences came in, but she hasn’t ever made a bad record. Definitely a great 👍
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One of her more unusual songs which I have always loved it. … Snakes and Ladders not only applies to relationships it applies to life as well!!
well snakes may not be rodents …but they do eat them 💜💜💜 great choice. Hope you had a great Christmas and I wish you a happy New Year.
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ha ha on the snakes eating the rodents :) I’m glad you like the song, Willow. Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a good 2026.
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Lol 😉💜 thanks 🙏🙏
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I liked the song. Great lyrics
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Glyn, it’s a good’n. I like how she uses he and she to begin the stanzas.
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Good song, new to me!
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Thanks Christine. Happy to make the intro.
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Love Don Henley and this duet. Never heard of the board game Snakes and Ladders, only Chutes and Ladders.
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It’s a good’n, Nancy. Milton Bradley changed the name iirc.
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per wiki:
“The game is also sold under other names, such as the morality themed Chutes and Ladders, which was published by the Milton Bradley Company starting in 1943.”
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This is the only song I know from this album. Have not heard it in years. Certainly played the game a lot growing up. Just played the Paw Patrol version of “Snakes and Ladders” the other day with my four year old grandson. Thanks for the coincidental tie-in Lisa!
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Randy, that’s so cool about you playing the game with your grandson. That makes my day :) Here is another favorite from it. Reading the info at YT, not only Billy Idol sang this with her, but Tom Petty.
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Glad to hear that! More impressive names but really, who wouldn’t want to sing with her!
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Li I enjoyed this it is too far back for me as I was only born in 1980, but the song is amazing, so, so good as is joni! X
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Yes it is and yes she is :)
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It took me awhile to figure out where the rodent was … way down at the end in the rat race line! haha
Cool how this mentions the game, which I’ve heard of Chutes and ladders, but we never played that one. :)
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Barbara, as someone else said, the snake swallowed the rat ;) I remember playing it as a kid.
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I haven’t heard a lot of her 80s stuff but this I’ve heard before! I wish I could have done this…but I just didn’t have the time.
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I hear you on not enough time. I would like to get into her jazz stuff more. Mangus wrote a great review on the Mingus album.
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I remember her in the 80s and yes…I was happy that she went more jazz instead of synth like some of her peers did. She could write any type of music.
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Reading this put me in mind of the way a particular song can take up a corner of your consciousness without any grand claim attached to it. The pairing of picture and title made me imagine a melody that is both playful and a little wistful, as if the sound were negotiating between lightness and gravity at the same time.
What stayed with me after reading was that sense of sound as metaphor rather than just entertainment, the way it can hint at narrative without needing to tie itself down.
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Dr. Banerjee, such an eloquent assessment of it. Thank you!
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