DOGS SHEEP OR PIGS

In the album Animals, who do you think Pink Floyd is supposed to represent, the pigs the sheep, or the dogs.

It is my contention that each animal represents different roles that Floyd played.

And for those of you who will argue that Animals is actually about the government you are wrong. It is about the recording industry. Yes he uses references like "Hey, You Whitehouse" (which is not about the American Whitehouse) but they are only metaphors.

Discuss amongst yourselves....I'm feeling veclempt (sp?)

HA HA - veclempt - i donno how you spell it!

I'm gonna read animal Farm first then see how they related it to their band - the lyrics are stunning and so is the music on this album - i listen to it the most at the moment!

(though i have Division Bell in teh player)


So i guess i'm Veclempt as well.
:smile:

Animal Farm is great, after you read it we can discuss the metaphors in that peice of work also

Beautiful!

Right after this week's finals i'll be able to read it 50 times!

I Can't wait to read it and talk about it!

Actually its been awhile, I prob'bly forgot all the little things

I haven't read 'The Animal Farm' yet. But I saw the film (but that years ago). Anyway, I'm going to read the book.

For what it's worth- there is a woman called Mary Whitehouse in the UK, who is known for being extremely conservative and has always spoken her mind on the subjects of violence on television, pro censorship and anything else which offends her exceptionally blinkered sensibilities. People took notice of her during the 70's and 80's, but as Britain as a whole realised that she talked out of her bottom, well....

And that, fixxlevy ol' buddy, is what Roger means when he yells Hey You Whitehouse.

But it is my belief that even that line was a metaphor for the music industry. Roger hated these fella's who were the masters of his fate. I believe though that as Floyd became even more popular they became the machine or monster that he so resented, thus Animals is an album about his develution (is this even a word? well you know what I mean). In other words in the beginning Floyd was the sheep but then they became dogs with the success of DSOTM, but then he rested power from someone(either his bandmates or record executives, I'm not sure which) and became the pigs.

NNJ,

Great stuff - i like what you have and i agree with you about the "dogs" stuff and all.

in 1 more day (last of Finals) i'll be able to read "Animal Farm" - then we'll talk man.

Hmmm...perhaps "Welcome to the Machine" was a take on Roger's (PF's) justifiably negative attitude toward the music industry, but fixxlevy was absolutely correct (as was I in a related post on the Animals forum) about Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, doyen of all things clean, pure, proper and, above all, Christian.

I don't know how you figured PF were "sheep" at the beginning of their careers, "dogs" when PF became a "monster" group with DSOTM and "pigs" after having wrested power away from those who had hitherto possessed same.

Whew! Just a tad too much armchair psychology/philosophy for so early in the morning. (And if your profession is either of those disciplines, my apologies).

Considering the lyrics at face value, it would appear that Animals is more about [British] society he recognised arranged into three distinct groups.

Our task is to decide to which group we belong or into which we are willing to be placed or place ourselves.

I know I'm a bit of a sheep-dog. (Which bit>? is an altogether different matter.) :smile:

Cheers,
Byron

Ok- Roger IS singing about Mary Whitehouse. As he puts it:

"She doesn't really merit the attention but she really is a cry...and she is a terribly frightened woman, isn't she? Terrified. Why does she make such about everything if she's not motivated by fear? Why doesn't she just get on with everything? She's frightened that we're all perverted."

Apparently, he used to think of Margeret Thatcher whenever he sung "Pigs".

As for "Sheep",he talks about the riots that occured in Toxteth and Brixton in the early 1980's and prophesises further uprisings in the future. He opines:

"We get obsessed with things- products- and if we're persuaded it's important to have them, that we're nothing without them, and there aren't enough to go round, the people without are going to get angry. Content and discontent follow very closely the rise and fall of the graph of world recession and expansion."

Ahhh, Rog.


You gotta love him.

OK I was wrong Rog is singing about the government. At least on the surface, but he applies those same labels on himself. At least metaphorically. I mean just from his own self-loathing I believe so.

This is the way I should have posted my original message. Of course I know that the album is about society. I just meant that there is a deeper, more personal meaning, as well.

Then again I am just full of horsehock.

One more thing... riots in the early 80's? Wasn't Animals 1977? I'm not to keen on UK history, so fill me in.

The interview was in about '85 or '86, and he was using them,as handy examples to demystify and validate the original meaning behind the song.

NNJohn,

Correctamundo! Perhaps fixxlevy is very much in excess of 45 years and the memory may be going a little. J/K :smile:

Animals, could not have been about the riots if it was produced BEFORE they occurred. Rog must have been on some serious weed at the time. Not j/k.

Incidentally, when the Brixton (London) riots broke out my mother, back in Southern California, became very worried about my safety. I don't know why, but I think it was the similarity in place names which was confusing her: I was living in a two-house hamlet in East Anglia at the time by the name of THREXTON, so I suppose the mistake is understandable.

Mums eh?

Floyd on!
Byron