Sheep

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Sheep
Pink Floyd
publication January 23, 1977
length 10:25
Genre (s) Avant-garde rock , progressive rock
Author (s) Roger Waters
Publisher (s) Harvest Records ( UK ) - Columbia Records ( US )
album Animals

Sheep is a song by British rock band Pink Floyd that appeared on the 1977 concept album Animals . Already composed in 1974, the piece was previously called Raving and Drooling .

The studio version of the song is 10:25 minutes.

Sheep was included in the late 2001 released Best Of album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd .

Cover story

Sheep was written in its original version as Raving and Drooling by Roger Waters in 1974 and played live at Pink Floyd concerts that year. From the underlying material, Waters developed a structurally consciously simple and catchy song, in this respect similar to the pieces Time or Money , which appeared on the 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon .

Musically, the song begins with a suggestion. A soothing and melodious e-piano, which conveys infinite peace on a sheep pasture by means of agitation , lulls the listener. You can't imagine that the slaughter is waiting. Author Roger Waters sings the text in E Minor held , melodic songs. Nick Mason's drums are hardly noticeable , as they play free of peaks and particular depth. David Gilmour's guitar and Richard Wright's organ playing adapt to the task of accompanying Waters' exciting messages in a subdued manner.

Lyrically, Waters leaned recognizable on George Orwell's novel Animal Farm . He reduced human community forms three categorical types of dogs ( dogs ), swine ( pigs ) and sheep (Sheep). The sheep are the stupid type , representing people who maintain subdued obedience and reckless lack of resistance because they feel subjugated and ultimately plunge into perdition because they look neither left nor right for a way out. Waters also takes a Marxist perspective, in that the doctrine of organized "religion" weighs on the sheep as opium for the people . In addition to Sheep , You've Got to Be Crazy , the forerunner to Dogs , was also created in 1974 . The dogs represent human ruthlessness, which, outside of all moral concerns, in a cunning manner pursues power-hungry interests and the pursuit of maximum profit.

Roger Waters came up with the idea of naming the title Raving and Drooling while listening to a piece by the former pop singer and DJ , Jimmy Young, on the BBC , which had been artistically dismantled and then reassembled at random. Waters considered this version of a performance to be a contribution to the depiction of the train of madness , which is why the title Raving and Drooling was animated in terms of content. At this point in time, the lyrics of the song still differed significantly from Sheep's in the sense described. Originally, Raving and Drooling was a jam song that provided space for artistic experimentation. While the main motif was always retained, Roger Waters' vocal parts were transformed into identical notes on the synthesizer at the end of a line or verse and continued changed, which gave his voice more power. Using a vocoder , an electronic filter, the sound properties of the human voice were analyzed in the middle parts of the song and a different sound was impressed on it. This becomes clear in the diatribe on Psalm 23 that starts at 6:27 minutes : The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places. He converteth me to lamb cutlets… . “The Lord is my Shepherd” perverts to the fact that this “Lord” actually leads his lambs to the slaughter, where they are almost jostling in view of their imminent end. Adjusted beyond recognition, Waters automated voice rattles up to the minute 7:08.

Both You've Got to Be Crazy and Raving and Drooling were originally intended for the future album Wish You Were Here , the work of which the band wanted to work on when the concert tour ended in 1974.

As Dogs and Sheep , the titles only came to Animals in 1977 . In November 2011, they went into the Experience and Immersion versions of Wish You Were Here , recorded in 1974 at Wembley .

Others

  • Large parts of the album Animals - along with the song Sheep - was produced in 1976 at Britannia Row Studios in Islington , London . Pink Floyd had integrated this studio into a converted church, which had previously served as a storage facility for the band's equipment and housed their office and rehearsal rooms. After a number of vermin had been removed that had still bothered the recording of Animals , the band found excellent recording conditions in this studio for the future.
  • The title Sheep , like the entire album Animals , is understood as a response to the punk movement that developed from the middle of the crisis-ridden British society, which felt a lack of support in the school system and also saw poor job prospects and was also confronted with a tangible economic crisis and had also led to a rougher musical style with Pink Floyd . Pink Floyd had also become the target of punk musicians who branded Pink Floyd as an establishment , such as Johnny Rotten , who wore a Pink Floyd t-shirt with the inscription "I hate" etched in ink.
  • During live performances in 1977, blues rock guitarist Snowy White strengthened the band. He played electric bass and took over parts from David Gilmour . Except for the fact that Richard Wright had an organ solo in the live versions, the studio and live versions were very similar.

Staffing

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin C. Strong, The Great Rock Discography (7th ed.), Edinburgh: Canongate Books. Page 1177 (2004). ISBN 1-84195-551-5 .
  2. ↑ James Guthrie, Building a compilation album ( Memento June 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Stuart Shea, Pink Floyd FAQ: Everything Left to Know ... and More! - Sheep (1977)
  4. ↑ Nicholas Schaffner, Saucerful of Secrets , first edition, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, (1991). ISBN 0-283-06127-8
  5. ↑ Editors: Alan Di Perna, Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski: Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd , 27
  6. ↑ What were the original lyrics to Animals?
  7. ↑ Editors: Alan Di Perna, Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski: Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd , p. 29
  8. ↑ Pink Floyd To Release New Album Including Unreleased Songs ( Memento of the original from October 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.newsroomamerica.com
  9. ↑ Pink Floyd Says Reissue Project Will Give 'Complete View' of Its Legacy
  10. ↑ Britannia Row Studios, 35 Britannia Row Islington London ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.philsbook.com
  11. ↑ Nick Mason: Philip Dodd, ed., Inside Out - A Personal History of Pink Floyd , Phoenix, (2005). ISBN 0-7538-1906-6
  12. ↑ Editors: Alan Di Perna, Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski: Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd , page 27 (the language even has a stripped-down sound )
  13. ^ Mark Blake, Comfortably Numb - The Inside Story of Pink Floyd , Da Capo Press, (2008). ISBN 0-306-81752-7
  14. ↑ Pat Browne: Pink Floyd , The guide to United States popular culture, p. 610, (2001). ISBN 978-0-87972-821-2
  15. ↑ Editors: Alan Di Perna, Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski: Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd , pp. 27/28
  16. ↑ Punk culture from the slums: brutal and ugly. In: Der Spiegel No. 4/1978
  17. ^ Ian Peel: Doctor Who: a musical force? In: The Guardian Music Blog . July 7, 2008.