Dogs

Album: Animals (1977)
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  • You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
    You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
    You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
    And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
    You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking

    And after a while, you can work on points for style
    Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
    A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
    You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
    So that when they turn their backs on you,
    You'll get the chance to put the knife in

    You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
    You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older
    And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south
    Hide your head in the sand,
    Just another sad old man
    All alone and dying of cancer

    And when you loose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown
    And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
    And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
    So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone
    Dragged down by the stone (stone, stone, stone, stone, stone)

    I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused
    Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used
    Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
    If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?

    Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
    That everyone's expendable and no-one has a real friend
    And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
    And everything's done under the sun
    And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer

    Who was born in a house full of pain
    Who was trained not to spit in the fan
    Who was told what to do by the man
    Who was broken by trained personnel

    Who was fitted with collar and chain
    Who was given a pat on the back
    Who was breaking away from the pack
    Who was only a stranger at home

    Who was ground down in the end
    Who was found dead on the phone
    Who was dragged down by the stone Writer/s: DAVID JON GILMOUR, ROGER WATERS
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 74

  • 00spy from CalgaryOrwell's "Animal Farm" was a warning about the danger of Socialism evolving into Communism specifically the Russian Revolution and Joseph Stalins part. So if Roger links his "Animals" to Orwells "Animal Farm" how do you come up with the "Dogs representing "Mary Whitehouse and Margaret Thatcher. Two conservatives equate to socialist/communist movements...Really? Either Roger completely mis read Orwell or someone here mis-reads Waters.
  • Rocky Roato from Sydneyto me this was the last Pink Floyd song. Collaboration, attention to detail. Long piece of music as opposed to a song. Innovating guitar. Pointed lyrics. Everything after was just solo performances.
  • Barry from Gagetown NbThe first time I heard the line "Who was trained not to spit in the fan ..." , I imagined "not pissing in the wind !!" As for knowing the accurate lyrics ... I can honestly say that I was reading them from the LP sleeve whilst singing along to these timeless Pink Floyd tracks ... back in 1977 !
  • Dougae from Sunny So CalThe dog barking sounds are not synthetic. The dogs heard after the first guitar solo are unaltered recordings, and the dog sounds during the long synth interlude are real dog sounds processed through a vocoder. PF made incredible use of electronic sound processing in a time when it was still a novelty.
  • John from UkGlad to see some non-Brits (tho' I suppose they could be ex-pats!) understand that Pig no.3 is Mary Whitehouse (she must've been dead 20 or 30 years, and she still makes me shudder!). Pig no.2 is, I suspect, not about Thatcher alone, but all the little Thatchers she was the figurehead for - basically pretty-much all middle-class Tory housewives. It is inconceivable that Waters wouldn't have reference either Thatcher or the wider type. Maybe you need ideally to have lived in the UK at the time to get it, but if you did there is no doubt whatsoever. Maybe slight room for conjecture (where name omitted): for instance, I wonder if he chickened out of mentioning Maggie by name. Whitehouse was an irritation, not a power; indeed she effectively became irrelevant in Maggie's reign, largely, I suspect, because unlike all who went before her, Maggie wasn't scared of people like Whitehouse (at which point Mary vanished in a puff of smoke!). But naming Maggie, calling her a 'f**ked up old hag', would have been asking for trouble - so maybe she is Pig no.2, but discretion being the better part of valour.

    Otherwise (in this one), it's 'lose control', not 'loose control'! It's enough to make you want to let slap the dogs of war!
  • Paul from Vancouver, CanadaI'd like to address some of the inaccuracies from the Chuck from Los Angles portion.
    The lyrics are "Who was trained not to spit in the fan". Not "in a fan".
    Of course the spitting incident was a coincidence. The Olympic Stadium concert was a good 5¾ months after the album's release. (Concert - July 6th, 1977. Album release - January 23rd, 1977.)
    More since the lyrics were penned well before.

    They were performing an early version of this song live, back in 1974, before their Wish You Were Here tour. As "You've Got To Be Crazy", (slightly different spelling).
    With the "spit in the fan" line already fully developed. (15 mins, 58 secs)
    https://youtu.be/2iIsTWvp_Zo
  • Emma from Perth, Australia No, "you f***ed up old hag" was referring to Mary Whitehouse, the anti-porn, anti-smut, anti-everything campaigner.
  • Jon from United KingdomIf you want to hear my cover of dogs it's here http://youtu.be/amMZ7AWofMc
  • Jon from United KingdomOverall this song is about the greed of capitalism, the politics of those who stab you in the back (whilst giving you a pat on the back!) and use you to make themselves look good and progress their careers. The lyrics ring home with me especially when he sings "who was only a stranger at home" referring to the long hours people work under pressure not being part of home life.
  • Jon from United KingdomThe phrase "Trained not to spit in the fan" simply means not sh**ing on your own doorstep, biting the hand that feeds you. My senior management used to use this phrase a lot when berating unruly salesmen.
  • Wade from Santa Barbara, CaMy interpretation is that the pigs are the politicians, the sheep are the people, and the dogs are the cops. The pigs seek to control the people, the dogs to the actual violent work, the sheep, too confused or stupid to react, suffer. Repeat loop. Here's Tom with the weather.
  • Drake from Huntington Beach, CaIn my point of view, dogs our are greedy American politicians who suck every last cent out of us for themselves look at what are " lovely" IRS is doing right now with all our tax paying dough. This doesn't mean I'm holding any kind of grudge, it's just the truth. Society needs to wake up and see the truth of whats really happening behind closed doors in D.C. and Capitol Hill right now. Another note: here's what I think of all the animals: pigs- government, dogs- rich people who are corrupt and crooked, sheep- just people trying to live their everyday lives in peace and harmony. Just wait till Judgement Day comes. All those( or most of them) sheep will be saved, while the foolish dogs and pigs will suffer.
  • Jim from Pleasant Hill, CaThe part at ~12:20 where he sings "gotta admit..." is (to me) one of the most powerful segues in any rock song. The combination of the long synthesizer section transitioning to that is epic stuff. But, listening to this song too often can induce depression!
  • Terry from Wickford, RiGeorge says: "Meanwhile, Roger already had the 'Wall' conception in his plans, and this album just served to comply with the contract and make some money in the meantime. "Incorrect. "Animals" may have been a stopgap, consisting of older material (except for "Pigs on the Wing" and "Pigs (3DO)" ), but "The Wall" was composed in 1978 AFTER the 'In The Flesh' tour in support of "Animals". The spitting incident in Montreal was a major catalyst which Roger Waters cites himslef over and over again. and can be read on his website as well as in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame "Wall" exhibit. The idea of a wall between audience and performer had been percolating in his mind since 1975 or so, but the specific concept was made after 1977 and this album.

    Also, the common misconception that "hey you whitehouse" in "Pigs" is a reference to the US President is false. The reference is to Mary Whitehouse, a leading crusader for censorship at the time.
  • George from Las Vegas, NvThe dog barks are a Hammond Organ put through a synth. And I agree with everyone who thinks this album should have contained more songs, but there were contract problems and they just put out what they had at the time, refashioned as a 'concept' album. Meanwhile, Roger already had the 'Wall' conception in his plans, and this album just served to comply with the contract and make some money in the meantime. It is a favorite of mine, but a long way from being a great Pink Floyd album. Gilmour was barely speaking to Waters but they fulfilled their obligation. BTW, Roger complained to a Rolling Stone Mag editor at the time, "We sell millions more than the Rolling Stones, but we never get coverage".
  • Kris from Wichita, Ksreally? youre going to claim that Roger spitting on one fan created the whole Wall album? It has nothing to do with his childhood and growing up without his father and the pain he felt? Seriously who checks these pages some of them are off the wall and out of no where
  • Steve from Virginia Beach, VaThe statement Chuck from Los Angeles made about the line "Who was trained not to spit on the fan" is false. The album "Animals" was released in January of 1977, while the Spitting Incident occurred in July of 1977.
  • Frederik from Glamsbjerg, DenmarkThe title of track number 2, Dogs, could have been inspired by the fact that Battersea contains the most famed UK home for stray dogs - and as you all know, Battersea also features on the album in another as Battersea Power Station is the factory seen on the front cover of Animals.
  • Lylah from Grand Junction, CoIn my own mind i would think that Pigs are the people who control the Buisness men (dogs) like the government, the queen of England, and also police in one line in Pigs Roger says: 'Good fun with that hand gun", wich i also think refers to the mafia. Dogs are buisness men that stab people in the backs or get stabbed in the back, told what to do, work until they die, and try to get ahead of everyone else in life. A lot of us are dogs and a lot of us are also sheep. Pigs on the Wing might refer to police chasing down dogs and sheep. Sheep mindlessly follow the leader not having to guts to speak out for them selves. Soooo..: Pigs are cold hearted leaders who control dogs (people or buisness men), sheep (people or followers, Pigs on the wing (police). Dogs chase the sheep and dogs and sheep are controlled by pigs.


    Ps.. I love the high pitched break down in the solo, i melt a little inside whenever i hear it.
  • Kocean from Rowayton, CtI've been listening to this song for the past few days and I love it so much. The lyrics are so haunting of what is occuring in todays world. How ironic that 30 years later these words ring so much truer than ever. Thank you Roger Waters. You've written the soundtrack to so many lives.
  • Dan from Azusa, Ca"Pigs on the Wing" refers German bombers in WW2 that carpet bombed most of England. Roger Waters was raised as child with air raid sirens ringing in his ears. "Pigs- 3 different ones" refers to The US president (hey you white house) The Queen of England (you f-ed up old hag) and I dont know what the 3rd refers to. "Sheep' is about the Jews or religious conformists. "Dogs' is about middle or low class income people. Possibly about negros. The final stanza, "Who was...." refers to himself. His ex- wife, Jude, cheated on him with another lover while Roger was away on tour with Floyd. A lot of those lyrics prove true in the album "The wall".
  • James from Redding, AzI believe the second set of dogs barking is synthesized.
  • Tim from Toronto, OnIt's an allegory. The dogs are high powered manic businessmen who eventually destroy themselves and are "dragged down by the stone". The "bad blood that slows and turns to stone" is depression. This is exactly what depression feels like. They lose their soul on their quest for success and reap the consequences of their actions. The business world is full of people like this. Some are now in jail.
  • Terry from Wickford, Ri"The dogs are the Russians, the three Pigs are the United States, Great Britain and France... The sheep are everyone else who are forced to watch the superpowers duke it out. I wish I had a quote or something to really prove this.
    - Shawn, Area 51, PA"
    Well, I wish you had a quote or something to prove it too, because it's absolutely incorrect, sorry to say. The societal archtypes most people mention here are accurate, for the most part. The Orwell, "Animal Farm" resemblance was really retro-fitted on after the fact once Waters re-tooled the lyrics to these 3 year old tunes and added Pigs to it (which directly references Mary Whitehouse who was a ultra-conservative, self-appointed guardian of censorship in Britain at the time of the album's writing. And yes, Pigs on the Wing is indeed a love song in 2 parts that bridges the album and provides a first-person Waters reference where he places himself in the Dog column given the 3 choices there are in life. A dog with a heart I guess...I love the meatheaded sexual pun of "bury my bone." he wouldn't be that misogynistic until Pros and Cons which he wrote the following year in 1978 alongside The Wall. Gilmour was quoted as saying the original lyrics were very hard to sing live because there were just so many of them. The ending stanzas were a direct attempt at writing poetry like Ginsberg, with each line started by "Who..."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl

    and had similar themes to "You Gotta Be Crazy/Dogs"

    and "trained not to spit in the fan" means that the future dog of the song learns not to cause trouble, and is certainly no reference to the (future) spitting incident at the end of the Animals tour.
  • Al from Brisbane, AustraliaAround 15:30 into the song, Roger Waters says: "Who was trained not to spit - in a fan." Although it is probably a coincidence, Waters once when in pompei they wanted a roasted pig. Roger used an old desk fan to make a spit to roast the pig.

    Roger Waters studied history not engineering so he "was trained not to make a fan into a spit".
  • Robert from Luray, VaAt 7:30 it has one of my favorite guitar riffs ever.Amazing.
  • Chloe from St. Louis, Mosome seriously deep lyrics- the whole concept is brilliant. Not to mention some great instrumental segments. And though I know it can't have been intentional, I find the "Hide your head in the sand, just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer" lines slightly eerie. I don't think I need to say who it reminds me of.
  • Luke from Dayton, Oh17 min. of complete epic power
  • Carolyn from Fremantle, AustraliaEverytime I listen to this song I think of people I know who just don't get it. It's one of the most empowering songs of my lifetime. Thankyou Pink Floyd xxx
  • Chloe from St. Louis, Monot quite right, oldpink- you're forgetting 'pigs on the wing'. great song, the lyrics blow me away.
  • Nishit from MumbaiThe line 'Deaf, dumb and blind' sounds exactly like the way Pete Townshend sung it on Pinball Wizard!
  • Roy from Granbania, MaThis song has some amazing guitar work in it. I particularly like the harmonized solos.
  • Oldpink from New Castle, InAgain, great, biting lyrics from Roger.
    Then, Dave cuts loose with some of his best guitar work ever, that is downright savage.
    Why do Floyd fans love Floyd?
    Because Floyd NEVER did a love song, of course!
    ;-)
  • Caleb from Lee, MaAlright everyone. To me this song is about human condition. And how people have to survive in the real world, and have to go off on there own and fight to survive ( like a stray dog). lol I dont know why I see the song this way, but this is probably my favorite pink floyd song. I just cant get enough of the atmosphere its gives off when I listen to it.
  • Danny from Worcester, Ma"the stone" not only symbolizes what brings the "dogs" down but also has literal meaning to an the struggle that an actual dog would go through. As Waters does throughout the entire album, he not only uses metaphors but double-metaphors. When a dog would give birth to too large of a litter that a family could handle the puppies that weren't necessry would be placeed in a bag with a heavy stone in it and thrown in water to drown. Cruel but true, it accurately symbolizes the struggle of an average working class man. Just thought you might want to know that the stone wasn't just randomly chosen, but was actually a very well thought out symbol.
  • Marin from Zadar, Croatiagreat song, but somehow I find that slide solo very familiar, as if I heard it in some other song long time ago when I was a kid. It is kind of similar to Peter Green's Albatross but not quite it. Anyway I'm hoping to find that song (if such song even exists) which has the same slide solo like Gilmour's solo in dogs only longer, more like an instrumental. I tried to find that song on the internet, but finding a song based on the instrumental is quite impossible. Any help is appreciated, especially if you know the name of such "fantom" song which remained somewhere in my subconscious memory
  • Jeremy from Ventura, CaI have found a reference to Dogs in Hey You:

    "Hey you, would carry the stone
    open your hearts I'm coming home"

  • Tadeo from Montreal, QcI'm not so crazy about the solo's during the quicker part of the song but when it solws down into the middle interlude part, with that slow harmonized solo, it floors me everytime. The solo right after that part where you hear all the dogs barking is just phenomenal. More is said thorugh that solo then all of the song's lyrics. Gilmour is just such an amazing player who really pours his heart and soul out with every solo he plays.
  • John from Mesquite, TxThis id my favorite song and album of all (although the original "You Gotta Be Crazy" might have slightly better lyrics). Waters has said before that pigs were the politicians, dogs were the businessmen that support the politicians (capitalists) and sheep were the masses that followed mindlessly. My interpretation of this (based partially on the lyrics of Dogs and well as the predesessor You Gotta Be Crazy) is that the first part of the song is an old dog giving tips to a young protege. As the song progresses the old dog recognizes his protege as more competition and becomes more paranoid. The old dog dies, and the last section (each line starting with "Who") is a alomst a eulogy spoken on his behalf by the pigs of their loyal servant. If you see this, it gives Sheep a twist, in that the old Dog may be the one that the Sheep kills (Raving and Drooling, I fell on his neck with a scream...), in which case Dogs and Sheep are linked by this event and show different sides of the same story. And yes, a whole lot of scotch was consumed in coming up with this, and I hope you can listen to this masterpiece with a few drinks to see if you agree.
    P.S. If you like the Dog lyrics, Google Lyrics for You Gotta Be Crazy. There is the best line of any song that never made it;
    You gotta get you started early
    Processed by the time you're thirty
    Work like f*ck 'till you're sixty five
    And then your time's your own until you die
  • Bill from Rochester, NyI interpreted this song quite differently. I was Watching a show on Nazi Hunting on the Discovery channel then it occured to me that the Dogs represented the Nazis before,during and after WWII.Such lines as ...And in the end you'll pack upand fly down south, and hide your Head in the sand, Just another sad old man, All alone and dying of Cancer... this refers to post WWII when Nazi war criminals fled (and in the end you'll pack up) Europe to escape the Nuremberg trials by moving to South America and kept a low profile (...fly down south, and hide your head in the sand...). In order to remain unnoticed they would remained alone and many of the escapees often died of diseases such as cancer. (just another sad old man all alone and dying of cancer).
    well thats one part of my interpretation and I've said enough for this comment.
  • Steven from Dayton, OhDogs is a great song, Animals is a great album, and Pink Floyd is the greatest overall band of all time. Dogs ranks #3 on my list of floyd songs, with #2 being Astronomy Domine and #1 being Echoes.
  • Peter from Mattituck, NyI always thought of this song as applied to a mafia person. Kind of fits.
    Peter P.,Mattituck,NY
  • Scott from Portland, OrWhat's crazy is that there are bootlegs from 1974-1975 that prove that "You Gotta Be Crazy" i.e. "Dogs" was a very complete and utterly fantastic song even before Wish You Were Here was released. Gilmour lobbied to have it on the record but was outvoted so it had wait years for "Raving and Drooling" i.e. "Sheep" to be polished (it wasn't quite in its final form) for Animals.
  • Steveb from Spokane, WaIts not solely about businessmen, I can't believe that was put into the facts... in Pigs on the Wing Part 2 Roger refers to himself as a dog, "any fool knows a dog needs a home." Roger Waters is a dog who found a life outside of the sick capitalist environment filled with sheep, pigs, and sell outs of his own kind. He still rose to success, as a musician and lyricist(not to mention he was about as self-involved as any other dog). These are the intelligent people, not particularly concerned with power nor going with the crowd as pigs and sheep, but just making something for themselves, going up the ladder as far as possible and keeping their opinions inside, whether or not they're against the conditions they simply play the game and win as much as possible. In the end, because they are individuals, they find themselves ill content, dying unhappily with their material things and unsatisfied with what their money has got them... and if they ever come to realize it, they find that they're very insignificant despite their supposed success, as the pigs always have the highest say and will use them, "gotta admit i'm a little bit confused, sometimes i feel as if im just being used." "Gotta stay awake gotta try and shake off this creeping molaize" is an example of their paranoia and awareness of the horrible surroundings they are under, and how they are trying to repress those thoughts in order to continue the game. "if i don't stand my own ground, how can i find my way out of this maze?" (the maze being the crazy game with no escape that is modern life) "deaf dumb and blind, you just keep on pretending, that everyone's expendable, and noone has a real friend," (the dog destroys his humanity and blocks all companionship as a sign of weakness) "seems to you the thing to do, would be to isolate the winner" (the inability to be happy for anyone else) "everything's done under the sun,(the belief in nothing more than what is immediately on earth) "and you believe at heart evereyone's a killer" (don't trust anybody)

    The last stanza is open to interpretation, but is mostly just descriptions of the dog and how he was conformed, and in the end how he was dragged down by the stone, a symbol I've gone over quite thoroughly already. These are just the tendencies of most dogs, not every single one will be trapped. Easily trained, but just as easily may they be wild, individuals, separate from the pack. Of course, some may start "breaking away"(intellectual enlightenment) and find themselves already dragged down before they can do so entirely...
  • Achory from Warner Robins, Gaactually, the song is just about the backstabbing, low-down, dirty people in the world. as for favorite album (since that appears to be a sort of thread here), i've gotta go with The Wall (no, i'm not just one of those "another brick in the wall part 2" fans). and this is acutally my second favorite song on this album. personally, i prefer sheep.
  • Celina from Puebla, MexicoI love this song, it's just amazing. The lyrics are the fact of life, and the music is fascinating. All Pink Floyd together are outstanding. "You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in"
  • Alex from Jonquiere, CanadaActually the whole Animals album by Pink Floyd is a direct tribute to the Animal Farm book by famous author George Orwell. Pink Floyd rules and that's that!
  • Nick from Smyrna, TnThis is the type of song that you listen to when you drive home by yourself late at night and when you get home you always stay parked in you driveway just to finish it. I love the atmosphere it creates. Genious
  • Paul from Cincinnati, OhThis is definitely my favorite Pink Floyd song...it's also probably the longest rock song I love. I love songs that poetically encapsulate life within their lyrics. This is one of those songs. This song is tragically underrated...honestly, at this point in my life, Animals is by far my favorite album...with The Wall being second. On this album I think they adopted a more rocking sound. The keyboard is still used, but its use is mainly to tastefully provide preludes and complement the guitar, which is the main instrument. Also, I prefer the topics they choose to address lyrically to those on many other albums. People will hate me for this- but, Wish You Were Here is so obviously about Syd Barrett that at times it's hard to relate to personally; The Wall can sound quite whiny at times; and I'm not really sure of my opinion of Dark Side Of The Moon at this time...even on that album I only like some of the songs, to be perfectly honest. On Animals, I love all of the songs, and except for the occasionally lengthy mid-sections, not too many notes are wasted. Lastly, the songs are uncommonly powerful, even for Pink Floyd. It seems that when tension is highest, artists produce their best work. This was true for David Bowie (Low) and Syd Barrett (The Madcap Laughs) as well.
  • Shawn from Area 51, PaI think most of you are quite wrong, I've had long conversations with my father about the entire meaning of the Animals albums. Sure, many of the definitions make sense for TODAY, but it was indeed about the times when the album was released, near the Cold War.

    Supposedly, each animal represents a part of the Cold War. The dogs are the Russians, the three Pigs are the United States, Great Britain and France (Might not be France, been awhile.). The sheep are everyone else who are forced to watch the superpowers duke it out.

    I wish I had a quote or something to really prove this.
  • Chaith from Canada, CanadaTo me Dogs is a conversation between the conscious self and it's alter ego. Ironically,with time, social conditioning blurs the two and what you see is a dramatic monologue.

    A masterpiece. What baffles me that dogs doesnt figure in the top of mind recall for either Waters or Gilmour.
  • Echoe from Conversano, ItalyIt's Pigs on the Wing pt. 2 Pat
  • Echoe from Conversano, ItalyDogs will always be my favorite song it's amazing. I also think that Animals is underated, it is a masterpiece. Roger was a genious in it. He is phenomanal and so is David.
  • Derek from Sarnia, CanadaAnimals is indeed an underrated album...for me, it's not only the best album put out by floyd, but the best album ever with "Dogs" being my all-time favourite song. This song seems to go on forever and I never really want it to end. It's a 17 minute wonder maze that with some of Gilmour's best guitar work and Roger's lyrics are nothing short of brilliant
  • Giorgi from Milan, Italythis is one of the greatest songs ever made

    and of course gilmour is fantastic on this song
  • Michael Miller from Torrance, CaPink Floyd "You gotta be crazy" DOGS is a masterpiece of progressive rock in the highest form. It's rollercoaster crescendos & blistering guitar solos are legendary. What I find strange is the middle of the song, It makes you hypnotized- beginning with Stone,stone,stone.Then back the story once again. Magnifico!
  • Janie from Kansas City, KsAnimals is certainly showing the contrasts in this societal megaplex of a planet we live on.
    Artistically brilliant!!!!!!!!!!
  • Stephen from Altamont, IlFavourite all-time song. Great live version on Roger Waters In The Flesh tour DVD.
  • Zach from Chicago, IlYou gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
    You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older
    And in the end you'll pack, fly down south
    Hide your head in the sand
    Just another sad old man
    All alone and dying of cancer.

    The best line in any song ever. SO TRUE...
  • Glenn from Bandera, TxActually, in the WKRP episode, the exchange went more like this:

    Station Manager Carlson: Do I hear dogs Barking?

    Dj Dr. Johnny Fever, laid back, shades on: I Do...

    Pretty funny!
  • Yuya from Kyoto, JapanThis is the best song on the album.
  • Andrew from Livonia, MiAnimals would rate right up there with Dark side of the moon and Wish you were here (my favourite) if it were not for the rambling sections in the middle of the three main songs. Dogs, Sheep, and Pigs (Three Diffirent Ones) are all excellent songs. I would have prefered to see a couple more songs added and those parts removed
  • Pat from New York City, NyDefinately one of the most underrated Pink Floyd songs, then again what isnt to be people who think of Pink Floyd as only Another Brick in the Wall part 2 and Comfortably Numb
    Interestingly enough, Waters refers to himself as a dog in either the 1st or 2nd Pigs on the Wing
  • Danny from Boston, MaWell, Chuck from Los Angeles was a little off. Altough he did spit at a fan and it did inspire him to write The Wall, he spit at him during the promotion tour of Animals. When he says "trained not to spit in the fan", he means he was always told wat to do and never said "no" (hence the next line, "who was told what to do by the man".
  • Lee from Ottawa, CanadaI agree with Chris in Milwaukee that the Animals album is very underrated.For me it's a tie between Animals and Wish You Were Here for their best and one of my personal all time favourites.
  • Melody from Jacksonville, Flthis is my favorite pink floyd song. i love the words and how the music is always changing. it is an excellent piece of work that truly shows pink floyd's musical style and ability to rock psychedelic-style.:)-i messed up on my last post so i corrected it.
  • Melody from Jacksonville, Flthis is my favorite pink floyd song. i love the words and how the music is always changing. it is an excellent piece of work that truly shows pink floyd's musically style and ability to rock psychedelic-style.:)
  • Ash from Charleston, WvI'm pretty sure that when Waters wrote "trained not to spit in the fan," he meant the mechanical type of fan, not a person. And yes, this song rules all of mankind and creation.
  • Tony from St Louis, Mothe end is the best
  • Tom from Berlin, MdThis song is unbelievably awesome. The anger in this song, and how... raw it is is so excellent. It was a great creation of Waters'.
  • Tony from St Louis, Moi like the powerful guitar and lyrics
  • Ray from Portland, OrThere was a great episode (if ever) of the TV show WKRP, where the DJ is playing "Dogs" and the manager walks in and says, "Are those dogs I hear howling?" DJ says, "Yup". Square manager is completely baffled how this could be music. Proof Pink Floyd is the greatest!
  • Harry from Seaville, Njthis is song is so awesome, the solo and the lyrics are amazing
  • Chris from Milwaukee, WiThis is an excellent Pink Floyd song, with several great guitar solos in it. The Animals album is very underrated.
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The "All I Want" singer went through a long depression, playing some shows when he didn't want to be alive.

The Untold Story Of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine

The Untold Story Of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary MachineSong Writing

Fiona's highly-anticipated third album almost didn't make it. Here's how it finally came together after two years and a leak.

Dar Williams

Dar WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

A popular contemporary folk singer, Williams still remembers the sticky note that changed her life in college.

Soul Train Stories with Stephen McMillian

Soul Train Stories with Stephen McMillianSong Writing

A Soul Train dancer takes us through a day on the show, and explains what you had to do to get camera time.