Deep Purple / Who Do We Think We Are (Deluxe Edition) / 1973
Rat Bat Blue
cocky, propulsive, dismissive
A hard-rock strut through a one-night pickup that curdles into dismissal, built more for Jon Lord's organ pyrotechnics than for lyrical depth. The words function as a scaffold for swagger and riff, tracing a boastful come-on that sours into contempt once the speaker gets what he wants.
macho posturing casual sexual conquest dismissal and contempt nonsense-phrase hook performance over substance
Who's speaking
A male narrator addresses a woman directly throughout, moving from flirtatious pursuer to satisfied-then-scornful ex; the voice is unreliable in the sense that its bravado seems designed to mask insecurity, and the audience is left to take the swagger at face value or read it ironically.
What happens
The song opens with a pickup line at what sounds like a bar or club, moves through impatient urging to leave together, escalates into a promise of sexual bravado, and ends with the same man abruptly ejecting the woman, accusing her of being unable to satisfy him and of deceit. The arc is a compressed rise and fall of desire into contempt, with almost no reflection in between.
How it's built
Standard verse-chorus rock structure, but the chorus is reduced to a nonsense title phrase repeated as a vocal hook rather than a lyrical payoff. Each verse escalates the narrator's aggression slightly, and the song ends not with resolution but with the phrase looping into a fade, mirroring the lack of emotional development.
Section by section
Opening verse
The pickup lines are generic and rehearsed, establishing a narrator more interested in performance than connection; the questions asked are transactional rather than curious.},},
First chorus
The hook arrives as pure sound, an onomatopoeic bark that substitutes for any lyrical hook, letting the instrumental drive carry the emotional weight instead of the words.
Second verse
“got to love, got to live”
The urgency intensifies into impatience, with the imperative tone suggesting entitlement rather than romance; the phrase about loving and living reduces desire to a slogan.
Bridge into final verse
“I'm a hard loving man”
The self-description functions as both boast and excuse, framing the coming rejection as inevitable given the narrator's supposed nature rather than as a consequence of his behavior.
Closing verse
“make sure I don't see you”
The narrator's finality is abrupt and cruel, closing the door on any mutuality the opening verses implied; the accusation of dishonesty projects blame outward rather than examining his own conduct.
Craft
- nonsense refrain
- The title phrase carries no literal meaning; it functions purely as rhythmic, percussive vocalizing that lets the band foreground riff and organ solo over lyrical content.
- direct address
- The consistent use of second person creates an illusion of intimacy and confrontation, making the woman a silent, voiceless object of the narrator's shifting attitude.
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- The final verse pivots sharply from seduction to expulsion, reversing the earlier flattery into insult and revealing the transactional nature of the narrator's interest.
Reading it
Read straightforwardly, the song is a boastful, ungenerous account of a hookup and dismissal, typical of early-70s hard rock's unreflective machismo. A more generous reading treats the lyric as deliberately thin and cartoonish, a vehicle for vocal texture and band interplay rather than a serious character study — the title's meaninglessness supports this, suggesting the band cared far more about the riff than the narrative.
Context
This track closes Deep Purple's 1973 album Who Do We Think We Are, from the Mark II lineup's final studio effort before Ian Gillan and Roger Glover departed. The period was marked by internal tension in the band, and several contemporary accounts describe the album's creation as fractious, though I can't confirm specific details about this song's writing process.
Listen for
- The organ and guitar trade-off that carries more expressive weight than the lyrics
- The rhythmic, almost drum-like delivery of the title phrase
- The tonal shift in the final verse from invitation to rejection
- Gillan's vocal shifting from smug to sneering as the lyric turns
About Deep Purple
Deep Purple are a British rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical style has varied throughout their career.
1968 - present / United Kingdom
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