Talk:Dogs (Pink Floyd song)

Band members

I changed the "personnel" to "band members" which might sound better. -Mohseng 15:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

The Dogs

This song is not to be confused with the song "The Dogs", sung to the tune of The Church's One Foundation or "The White Cockade" which begins; "The dogs they held a meeting..." Pustelnik (talk) 00:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of "who" in final verse

I always assumed that the final verse was a series of subordinate clauses intended to modify the noun, "killer", from the previous verse, e.g.

"You believe at heart everyone's a killer who was born in a house full of pain, ..."

Any merit to this? --EZ76 (talk) 21:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard this before, but it sure makes sense now that you mention it -- though of course it's far from encyclopedic. Thanks for bringing it up though. Roger's writing has so much depth, and it deserves a very in-depth analysis. Dcs002 (talk) 04:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

EZ76 is absolutely right; it's obvious from reading the lyric sheet. The comparison to the Ginsberg poem has always irked me as poor journalism, a pretentious desire to name-drop the well-known (and, IMO, overrated) beat poet. They are not questions (i.e., "Who was born in a house full of pain? You, ya bastard!") I first noticed this in Schaffner's generally-excellent A Saucerful of Secrets, in 1990, and since then the meme has proliferated like dandelions. But Roger Waters has denied this, in an interview with Phil Rose for his book, Which One's Pink? I'll see if I can work it into the article.

PHIL ROSE: I think it was Schaffner who notes that you use that device that Ginsberg uses in the poem of the repetition of "who" in the last lines of "Dogs". Was that a conscious... because it struck me immediately... the title "Howl" and a song called "Dogs"...

ROGER WATERS: Right. No, no. I didn't make that connection. That's not to say it doesn't exist, of course.

Yes, I'll be working this in somehow.

--Ben Culture (talk) 13:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Thank you, EZ76, for bringing it up.

--Ben Culture (talk) 13:52, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Poker

In the 'Early versions' sections it states that on recent Roger Waters tours, the musicians sat down during the performance to play poker, presumably referencing Dogs Playing Poker. On that page, however, it states they played one round of cribbage, not poker, each show with the intention of declaring a winner at the end of the tour. I don't know which is correct. Perhaps someone else does and can edit the pages as appropriate. Jrmh (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Trivia

According to Wikipedia guidelines, trivia sections should be removed. Most of the information in this trivia section regards the technical aspects of the song, so I suggest we create a new section of the page entitled Recording. What is the general consensus on my suggestion?Krobertj (talk) 14:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, WP:TRIVIA does not recommend removing trivia sections. Its suggestions on what to do about them, include what you are proposing. You asked, "what is the general consensus on my suggestion"; it is not possible for any one of us to give you our "consensus"; but we can give an opinon that it's a good idea, and approval for making this simple change without a consensus-building discussion. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm in favor of keeping all the information in the section (or in some other section), but it MUST be cited. Otherwise we blur the distinction between trivia and urban legend. What I really want to know is the source for Gilmour using a Telecaster for the solos. I've suspected that for decades based on the tone, but where did the info come from? Dcs002 (talk) 04:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of removing information, but I removed an item about a misprint on the early copies of the LP's lyric sheet. I was editing the "Concept" section, and this trivia item was put there, which wasn't right. Maybe I should have moved it somewhere else in the article, but I honestly didn't think anybody would miss it. Does it matter?

--Ben Culture (talk) 13:54, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why I didn't answer the question about the Telecaster. Yes, it's a down-tuned Telecaster on this song. This is stated in the November 2002 issue of Guitar World magazine, which I cited in the "Compositions" section in reference to the chords.

--Ben Culture (talk) 11:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Original research/lack of citations

The guy who wrote the "concept" part of the article is relying heavily on interpretation and his/her own ideas about the songs. It's not very fitting. I suggest we 1) Find reliable sources to back the claim (some sort of album review, or other article about the song, OR 2) delete the whole thing. I believe it's a good idea to have some sort of explanation what the song is about, so I'm not too keen on removing the whole thing. Could some other Floyd fan help me out? --Soren84 (talk) 21:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

In 30+ years, I haven't encountered any analysis of this LP.

The way I remember it was, 30 years ago, people used to debate whether or not Animals could be considered a first rank Floyd album or not. A lot of people found this one too light. Just as Dark Side was regarded as a little light. It was rather uncool to prefer Dark Side over, say, Meddle or Atom Heart. Dark Side was for people who were rock fans. It was "accessible". And, clearly, anyone who was doubtful about Animals and Dark Side detested The Wall, which was considered Floyd's disco album, basically. They lost a lot of older fans with The Wall.

Varlaam (talk) 20:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that these opinions you describe are now obsolete. There are very few people who would seriously argue that Atom Heart Mother is a better album than Dark Side of the Moon, and I imagine whatever fans they lost due to the very-slight disco aspects of The Wall have been more than replaced by younger fans. (The whole absurd "Death to Disco" movement is now, thankfully, history.)

Animals is anything but lightweight, least of all when compared to the albums with "San Tropez" and "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" on them.

Waters and Gilmour themselves have both publically torpedoed Atom Heart Mother, and those quotes are in one Wikipedia article or another. I do like the album, though,

--Ben Culture (talk) 11:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

HEY im not a member but in this articals meaning section you spelled behavior wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.5.153.98 (talk) 14:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

And you spelled "articles" wrong, so neener-neener-neener! --Ben Culture (talk) 12:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Writer of original version

At the beginning of the article it states that Gilmour wrote the original version of the song and Waters changed it later (citing no source), but the Gilmour quote near the end seems to indicate Waters wrote the earliest version, or at the very least the lyrics to that version. What are the sources for information on this other than this Gilmour quote? Seems worth knowing both for the sake of cleaning up the article and in its own right just as a Floyd fan. 50.72.196.97 (talk) 05:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Gilmour did not write any version of this song by himself. The lyrics were always Waters's -- just not very good ones. I have edited the article to reflect this. If you need a source for that, view the credits in the booklet for Wish You Were Here: Experience Edition. But it's a good rule of thumb that from Dark Side of the Moon to The Final Cut, nobody but Roger Waters wrote lyrics to any Pink Floyd song. Some of the albums even have a credit reading "ALL LYRICS BY ROGER WATERS".

I really wonder why that section was written in such a misleading way. There always seems to be a fan backlash against songwriters who write all, or the majority, of their band's material. I have seen Cars fans claiming Ric Ocasek greedily stole all credit for The Cars's material from his bandmates -- as if he could just do that; as if any musician would give up his songwriter royalties without a lawsuit, just to keep one megalomaniacal bandmate happy. There are people who think Lou Reed wasn't really the driving force of the Velvet Underground, either. There are people who say Dennis Wilson was the true genius of the Beach Boys, or John Entwhistle the crucial soul of The Who. And there are people, some of them musicians, who do not understand that arranging is not songwriting or composing. They develop their keyboard voicings, or their bass lines, and believe they just co-wrote the song. Songwriting consists of chords, melodies, and lyrics. All else is arrangment and production.

Anyway -- Please forgive the rant!

--Ben Culture (talk) 12:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Citing the same source more than once.

You can see that some sources have been cited more than once -- that was me, sorry. I don't know how to cite something a second time without it being added to the list a second time. If anyone cares to spell it out for me (so I don't have to read a long article titled "Citing Sources" or whatever, searching for the specific answer), I'd be really grateful. Or, at least, fix it for me, and I'll try to figure out what you did.

--Ben Culture (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The chords

I wrote:

The main theme features what were, for Pink Floyd, rather unusual chords. In the final version's key of D minor, the chords are D minor ninth, E♭maj7sus2/Bb, Asus2sus4, and A♭sus2(♯11). All these chords contain the tonic of the song, D.

. . . And I cited three sources for it: The sheet-music book, Phil Rose's Which One's Pink?, and an issue of Guitar World magazine. The thing is, these three sources do not agree on what to call the chords. The sheet music book, actually, gets it wrong the worst, calling the second chord a simple B♭ (ignoring the E♭ in the chord), the third chord Am9(sus4) (not bad, but there's simply no third in the chord at all, and Gilmour sings the MAJOR third, C♯, over the chord at times. So, "A9sus4" might do, except there's no seventh, so it'd be Asus4add9, which just looks ridiculous), and the fourth chord a B♭7 (more on this in a moment). Phil Rose calls the second chord B♭(add4) (not bad, but due to the low placement of the E♭, it makes more sense to go with the E♭maj7sus2/B♭), and the fourth chord B♭/A♭ (ignoring the E♭ low in the chord, the fifth of A♭, so it must be a kind of A♭ chord, so we get A♭sus2(#11).)

Basically, I have gone with the Guitar World names for the chords. I find guitar-oriented magazines to be infinitely more reliable than those sheet-music books, which are basically for pianists who want to play a melodic arrangement, to carry the song by themselves. In fact, almost everybody's sheet-music books contain multiple errors. I'm convinced these things get published without the songwriter(s) even glancing at them.

I admit, I don't know why Guitar World called the third chord (low to high: A, E, B, D) "Asus2sus4", while the fourth chord (A♭, E♭, B♭, D) is "A♭sus2(#11)". You'd think consistency would dictate either changing the third chord to "Asus2(11)", or changing the fourth chord to "A♭sus2sus#4". This -- the naming -- is a problem with weird chords, one I've dealt with in teaching Brian Wilson compositions like "Let's Go Away For Awhile", whereas Waters and Gilmour have rarely strayed from their E minor ninths and C major sevenths. But on "Dogs", boy, do they stray. It's what happens when a relatively-uneducated, intuitive guitarist simply puts his fingers on the strings in a new position, and decides he likes the results ("Syd's Theme" - the B♭, F, G, E drone from "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is another example).

One other problem, and here I'm simply asking another musician to tell me what they think: Later in the section, I refer to a chord that goes, low to high, A, E, A, C#, F, as "A(add#5)". But now I'm thinking, perhaps it should have been "A(add♭6)" instead. It resolves to a straight A Major with the fifth on top. Should I change it? --Ben Culture (talk) 01:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

References

The Spitting Incident -- Let's not see this in the article again.

I removed the following from the "Concept" section:

Further support for Water's disassociation from Ginsberg work lies in the strong autobiographical content of the lyrics. The verse "who was trained not to spit in the fan" refers to the so called Roger Waters Spitting Incident, an account by a member of the audience, during which the singer lost his temper on stage during the In the Flesh Tour in the Montreal Show.

The first sentence is simply unencyclopaedic, a (not-very) "original" interpretation. The rest of it is a load of fetid dingo's kidneys, as Douglas Adams wrote. The Spitting Incident took place during the In the Flesh Tour -- which was the tour supporting the Animals album! They were not performing it as the early version, "You've Got To Be Crazy", no, it was "Dogs", and it was complete. Therefore, it is completely impossible for this song's lyrics to be a reference to the incident. The incident was a minor influence on The Wall, however.

It looked to me, when I glanced at the History, that someone has already tried to remove this nonsense once already, and it was re-added. I hope we're not getting into an edit war about this, but made-up stuff cannot stay in the article.
--Ben Culture (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Well done Ben Culture! You are 100% correct. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't tell you how nice it was to see your comment. Such a simple couple sentences, but they make me glow with the warm fuzzies, to know I'm being appreciated. Thank you very much for YOUR SUPPORT!

--Ben Culture (talk) 07:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

References

The Chords, Part 2:

I wrote a fair amount of the material in the "Musical Composition" section, including the following:

The song is then stripped back down to acoustic guitar, droning on the Dm9 chord, with the bass softly striking E, the ninth of the chord, in the same range as the guitar's lowest note, D. Another slash chord movement follows, B♭ to C/B♭, followed by the key's dominant, A Major, with the minor sixth heard first at the top of the chord, in an A(add♭6), and later, as its bass note (in a progression of A, A/F, A/E, to D minor). After another guitar solo over the new progression, Gilmour sings a melismatic vocal with overdubbed harmonies, ending with the lyric "Have a good drown/As you go down/All alone/Dragged down by the stone", as the dissonant A/F leads back to Dm9.

(I just felt I should include the whole paragraph, for the sake of context.)

Now I'm wondering if that "A/F" should be named Faug(maj7), or Fmaj7(aug), or Fmaj7(#5) or Fmaj7(b6). I still mostly lean towards "A/F", as odd as that sounds. The chord "up top" is clearly meant to be an A throughout the transition back to D minor. Anyway, if anybody feels otherwise, I won't mid if it's changed,

--Ben Culture (talk) 06:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

David Gilmour on drums

Brian Humphries told this, apparently: https://www.loudersound.com/features/raving-and-drooling-how-pink-floyd-made-animals Jules TH 16 (talk) 09:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)