In the latter days of the 1970s, punk and Pink Floyd got along just fine.
While the new wave spelt an existential bludgeon to the bloated excesses of prog and arena rock in general, Pink Floyd sailed through the insurrectionary year zero filled with the same well of alienated fever and political seethe that fuelled the likes of The Clash or the Sex Pistols, despite the latter’s frontman infamously sporting an ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ T-shirt.
The fact is, bassist and principal songwriter Roger Waters was angry, too. Many artists in his situation would have been more than happy with their lot. After the rocky creative waters following the absence of their founding songsmith Syd Barrett in 1968, Pink Floyd limped on with a string of mushy and half-baked jam records before flashing cosmic greatness on 1971’s Meddle. Once The Dark Side of the Moon was released two years later, Pink Floyd stood at the peak of critical acclaim and commercial success among the entire progressive cohort, their definitive LP still standing as the fourth biggest-selling album of all time.
A broiling contempt for the music industry, disgust at the ever-unruly audiences disrupting their live shows, and the social malaise that fogged the nation, setting the stage for the political upheaval that was to bludgeon the country in due time, all swirled with belligerent charge on 1977’s Animals.
Sonically soaking up punk’s grit and urgent energy, Waters fired off a lyrical attack on society’s ‘animals’ as a means to explore the day’s capitalist rot. The ruthless dogs, the greedy pigs, and the docile sheep, while perhaps on the nose, marked a thematic angle that eschewed cerebral fodder for a fable headed straight for the jugular.
Yet, Waters didn’t want Animals to remain one note. Mindful of the record’s wrath, two brief acoustic numbers in separate parts were placed as bookends on either side of the tracklist, serving as a wistful and romantic opener and conclusion to pull the album from the brink of nihilism.
“There was a certain amount of doubt as to whether that one was going to find its way onto this album, but I thought it was very necessary,” Waters once revealed in an interview. “Otherwise, the album would have just been a kind of scream, you know, of rage.”
‘Pigs on the Wing’ parts one and two were written in dedication to his then fiancée, Caroline Christie. A minor aristocrat who was married to the Grateful Dead manager, Rock Scully, previously, Waters reportedly had met his match when engaged in good-faith arguments or debates, a quality drummer Nick Mason had mooted as being what drew Waters to her. Excoriating the world outside while celebrating their blossoming connection, Waters’ allusive ode to their relationship sparkles with extra pertinence as an elegant embrace of life’s priorities amid the social tumult.
The two would eventually divorce in 1992, Waters years later suggesting a more universal message hiding underneath his poetic admiration toward his old lover. “Maybe it was about someone,” he told Mojo in 2017. “My feeling now is that it’s more general. It’s saying, ‘If we don’t care for one another and have empathy for one another, then all we’re left with is this… crap.’”
