Pigs (Three Different Ones)

"Pigs"
Song

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is a song from Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals. In the three parts of "Dogs", "Pigs" and "Sheep", Pigs represents the people Roger Waters considers at the top of the social ladder, the ones with the wealth and the power. It also delves into who manipulates and encourages the rest of society to be viciously competitive and cutthroat in order for them to remain powerful. Waters suggests the Pigs manipulate the Dogs in the line, "Gotta admit, that I'm a little bit confused, Sometimes it seems to me, as if I'm just being used."

Summary

The first verse refers to no one in particular, rather businessmen in general. The second verse indirectly refers to the opposition leader at that time, Margaret Thatcher, although her name or title is never mentioned. The lyrics' offensiveness to Thatcher is subtle, stating that she is "good fun with a hand gun"; better defined obscenities are prevalent when it refers to her as a "bus stop rat bag" and "fucked up old hag".

The third mentions Mary Whitehouse by name, painting her as a prudish, sexually repressed "house proud town mouse". This could not have done more to contribute to Whitehouse's negative image of Pink Floyd, who she thought were immorally promoting sex and drugs. Some people misconstrued this verse as "Hey You White House" as in taking a shot at the US political climate.

Apparently during this part of song, some of the original words were in fact censored by the band or its management before the final mix was recorded for release. Consequently we do not hear the actual words that the group used to describe Mary Whitehouse in detail - just a few "grunting sounds" and the words previously mentioned.

Halfway through the song, Gilmour uses a Heil talk box on the guitar solo and Waters uses a vocoder to mimic the sound of pigs. Because of this song, guitars played with talk boxes are commonly referred to as "pig guitars".

Compare with

• Piggies by The Beatles, on The Beatles
• War Pigs by Black Sabbath, on Paranoid

Trivia

• This song was referenced in the South Park episode, Fourth Grade, in which Cartman says "Ha Ha, Charade You Are" to Ms. Choksondik, and this line is repeated to his babysitter Shelly in the episode entitled "Cat Orgy".
• This song includes the first use of a talkbox by Pink Floyd.
• In the 1977 tour, during this song, Roger Waters shouted a different number for each concert. This purportedly has the purpose of identifying bootleg recordings.

Personnel

• David Gilmour - guitars, bass, talkbox, backing vocals
• Nick Mason - Drums, percussion (Cowbell)
• Roger Waters - lead vocals, tape effects, vocoder
• Richard Wright - Fender-Rhodes piano, Hammond organ, ARP String Synthesizers, Mini-Moog Synthesizers

Recording Date(s) - April, and May 1976 at the band's own Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London.