Seven-foot rats, rats along his rats lyrics

Come to my home, and you can set your clock to it. Just before dinner, as I’m laying down cheap cutlery in the blissful haze of a Gin Blossoms super-mix (my cooking music of choice), my five-year-old comes to the table, commandeers my phone and Spotify account, and the refrain hits again.

“Seven-foot frame, rats along his back!” he belts dramatically, circling the table with a rocker’s sneer across his face.

Mirabel, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, and Bruno, voiced by John Leguizamo, in a scene from Encanto.Credit:Disney

Anyone with a young child at home, and even some without, will be familiar with the line, burned into our brains after endless replays over the past month or so. It’s from We Don’t Talk About Bruno, the breakout tune from Disney’s Encanto, about the magical Madrigal family’s outcast uncle (John Leguizamo) who’s shunned due to his inconvenient prophecies.

There’s something comforting, amusing even, in knowing this isn’t just happening to me.

Since the soundtrack’s release in November, the song’s steadily grown into an unlikely smash: in Australia it’s the top trending music video on YouTube, with 73 million views in the two weeks since the film launched on Disney+; it’s at no.12 on ARIA’s singles chart and no.4 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart; and it’s currently featured in almost 200,000 TikTok videos.

In the sort of move that highlights their own incompetence, or at least a severe oversight in not recognising the hit they had, Disney declined to submit the song for Oscar consideration this year, instead going for the soundtrack’s more awards-baiting Dos Oruguitas, costing Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda his sure shot at EGOT glory.

But, of course, it’s not just Bruno (no, no, no) - the whole Encanto album, featuring eight tunes penned by Miranda, has quickly claimed rent-free tenancy in my head.

I initially thought another song would be the film’s breakout, Jessica Darrow’s Surface Pressure, sung in the film by burdened older sister Luisa, with its reggaeton beat and “dip, dip, dip” chorus. It’s the one my kid was first obsessed with, again circling the dining table yelling, “Was Hercules ever like, Yo, I don’t wanna fight Cerberus!?”

Then there’s Diane Guerrero’s What Else Can I Do?, a Shakira-esque rock ballad of self-determination featuring a delightfully Latin-ised pronunciation of “jacarandas”, that’s similarly been creeping up the pop charts.

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As of writing, Surface Pressure has climbed to no.24 on ARIA’s singles chart, while What Else Can I Do? and the no less addictive The Family Madrigal (“Drawers! Floors! Doors!“) are also staking their claim on streaming charts (they’re at no.12 and no.36 respectively on Spotify’s Viral 50). In Australia, the Encanto soundtrack, which originally debuted at no.29 on the ARIA albums chart, has since climbed up to no.5. In the US, it just topped the US’s Billboard 200, unseating Adele’s 30.

Of course, the ubiquity of Disney hits is not a new phenomenon - households with slightly older children are no doubt still living the Let It Go (or, for the true heads, Love is an Open Door), experience of 2013’s Frozen.

But, for me, this is new hat. I didn’t grow up listening to Disney show tunes: it was hair-metal dorks Poison at 5, Bobby Brown and Public Enemy by 9, 2Pac and Scarface through high school, and then a nerd’s crate-digging curiosity ever since.

Yes, I remember tedious Disney ballads of yore like A Whole New World and Can You Feel The Love Tonight?, and more fun fare like Under The Sea and Friend Like Me sound-tracking my childhood via Video Hits and pop radio - but it’s different when you’re actively forced to hear Disney songs against your will, when you just wanna vibe to, say, Lily Konigsberg’s latest but your kid’s demanding Surface Pressure for the 19th time of the week (I’m pretty sure his streams alone have pushed the single into the top 30).

Now, somehow, I’m a relative expert on Disney deep-cuts.

Dwayne Johnson’s You’re Welcome, which officially has 1.1 billion views on YouTube (all, I presume, from my kid’s breakfast-viewing last month), might be Moana’s biggest hit alongside the Oscar-nominated How Far I’ll Go, but Jemaine Clement’s Shiny - a glam, Bowie-esque stomper - is the gem.

Coco’s Un Poco Loco, with its Mariachi wails, is another one I’ve inadvertently memorised (can’t really blame that one on my kid), as well the cacophonous trap beat and recorder noise solo of My Own Drum (“Extra extra, read all about it, I’m extra extra!“) from Vivo, another Miranda production if not a Disney one.

Why do I know all this? What’s become of me? At this point, it is what it is. What kind of jack-hole parent would deny their kids’ musical enthusiasms, whatever they may be? Until the next cartoon soundtrack comes along, 2022 promises to be the summer of Encanto, the summer of Bruno.

And in any case, All of You is really starting to grow on me.