"Magnetic Rag" was published in 1914. It is significant for being the last rag which Joplin published in his lifetime, three years before his death in 1917. It is also unique in form and in some of the musical techniques employed in the composition.

"Magnetic Rag" was written by an ailing Joplin near the end of his career, when interest in ragtime was waning. He was suffering from the latter stages of syphilis, the disease from which he died only three years later.

Possibly as a result ...