Songfacts®:

• This single by The Boomtown Rats reached #1 in the UK singles chart for two weeks in November 1978, becoming the first song by a punk or new wave act to do so. It was also the first UK chart topper for an Irish rock act.
• This Springsteen homage tells the tale of a boy called Billy who feels the depressing town he lives in is a "Rat Trap." It was based on singer Bob Geldof's then job in an abattoir. He recalled to Mojo magazine February 2011: "I wrote Rat Trap in the abattoir in 1973, two years before the Rats were around. But I wasn't particular writing songs. I was just writing loads of words."
• Mojo asked Geldof how much of his song writing with The Boomtown Rats was journalistic and how much what you felt, like a psychic download? He replied: "The very first interview I did with the NME, with Angie Errigo, I said I wanted to be famous, because I wanted to use fame to talk about things that bothered me. And I have. But with 'Rat Trap,' there was just as much, as you say psychic download going on. That really was me working in the abattoir."
• The song replaced "Summer Nights" at #1. The song from the Grease soundtrack had spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts, and when the Rats performed "Rat Trap" on Top of the Pops, Geldof held up a picture of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta to loud cheers from the audience, before ripping it up.