The penultimate song from Flight b741 is “Rats In the Sky,” and it sticks out for its brisk pace, bright instrumentation and strange lyrics. Ambrose’s section details the city life of the pigeon who enjoys their liberating ability to fly. Cook expands on that life, detailing the dangerous and filthy experiences they have to go through like eating garbage and avoiding a cat named Bruno (according to Cook, Bruno is the name given to his neighbor’s cats). Stu’s verses comment on how, unlike pigeons, people forget to enjoy the simple, mundane moments in life by rushing through them. The final section sung by Joey describes a rat going into a costume shop and buying a pair of wings, even implying that the whole song may have been sung from their perspective (“jokes on you, you stupid men…”). All that said, the band might actually be singing about seagulls rather than pigeons, as before the song’s live debut they talked about seeing the “real life version” of the song the day prior.
“Rats In The Sky” shares some stylistic similarities with artists like The Beatles, Syd Barrett, 10cc and Honky Château-era Elton John, as well as Cook’s Pipe-Eye records.

While rats have been a part of the band’s discography since 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest, the band made their first reference to “Rats In The Sky” on the extended version of The Silver Cord. During the closing moments of “Extinction”, Stu sings the line “just like rats into the sky, fly into the moonless night.” In the summer of 2024, the title was used as a presale code for the band’s 2025 residency tour.
The studio version was played by Ambrose (piano/saxophone/vocals), Cavs (drums/percussion/vocals), Cook (Mellotron/vocals), Joey (guitar/vocals), Lucas (bass/vocals) and Stu (bass/guitar/Mellotron/vocals). The ASCAP ACE Repertory lists that the entire band received songwriting credits. It was released on August 9th, 2024.

“Rats In The Sky” was teased long before it was released, with a first appearance on 2024-05-18 at the Forum Karlin in Prague during a performance of “Cut Throat Boogie.” The song’s live debut occurred on 2024-08-20 at Thompson’s Point in Portland. This performance was as to be expected, with the only notable detail being an improvised outro by Joey.